View source for L'Absinthe

{{Short description|Painting by Edgar Degas}}
{{Infobox artwork
| image_file      = Edgar_Degas - In a Café - Google Art Project 2.jpg
| title           = {{Lang|fr|L'Absinthe}}
| artist          = [[Edgar Degas]]
| year            = 1875–76
| medium          = [[Oil painting|Oil on canvas]]
| height_metric   = 92
| width_metric    = 68
| height_imperial = 36
| width_imperial  = 26.8
| metric_unit     = cm
| imperial_unit   = in
| museum          = [[Musée d'Orsay]]
| city            = [[Paris]]
}}

'''{{Lang|fr|L'Absinthe}}''' (English: '''''The Absinthe Drinker''''' or '''''Glass of Absinthe''''') is a painting by [[Edgar Degas]], painted between 1875 and 1876.<ref name="Musee">{{cite web | title=Edgar Degas: In a Café | website=[[Musée d'Orsay]] | date=19 January 2016 | url=http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire/commentaire_id/dans-un-cafe-167.html?no_cache=1&cHash=18c0b5fa01 | access-date=2 October 2018 | archive-date=13 December 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131213223441/http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire/commentaire_id/dans-un-cafe-167.html?no_cache=1&cHash=18c0b5fa01 | url-status=dead }}</ref> Its original title was '''{{Lang|fr|Dans un Café}}''',<ref>{{cite book|last1=House|first1=John|title=Impressionism: Paint and Politics|date=2004|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=0300102402|page=124|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vgfPzsWEVg4C&q=l%27absinthe+original+titles&pg=PA124|access-date=2016-10-04}}</ref> a name often used today.<ref name="Lanier2016"/>

Other early titles were '''''A sketch of a French Café''''' and '''''Figures at Café'''''. Then, when exhibited in London in 1893, the title was changed to {{Lang|fr|L'Absinthe}}, the name by which the painting is now commonly known. It is in the permanent collection of the [[Musée d'Orsay]] in [[Paris]].

==Description==
Painted in 1875–76, the work portrays a woman and man<ref name="Musee"/> sitting side-by-side, drinking a glass of [[absinthe]]. They appear lethargic and lonely.<ref name="Lanier2016"/> The man, wearing a hat, looks to the right off the edge of the canvas, while the woman, dressed more formally in fashionable dress and hat, stares vacantly downward. A glass filled with absinthe is on the table in front of her. The models used in the painting are [[Ellen Andrée]], an actress who also appeared in [[Édouard Manet]]'s paintings ''[[Chez le père Lathuille]]'' and ''[[Plum Brandy]]'', and [[Marcellin Desboutin]],<ref name="Lanier2016">{{cite book |last=Lanier |title=Absinthe—The Cocaine of the Nineteenth Century: A History of the Hallucinogenic Drug and Its Effect on Artists and Writers in Europe and the United States |publisher=McFarland |year=2016 |isbn=978-1476628257 |first=Doris |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FNywDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT109 |page=109}}</ref> a painter and etcher.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ogFYAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA155 |page=155 |year=2013 |title=Dictionary of Artists' Models |author=Jill Berk Jiminez |publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1135959142 }}</ref> The café where they are taking their refreshment is the [[Nouvelle Athènes|Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes]] in Paris.<ref name="Lanier2004">{{cite book|last=Lanier|first=Doris|title=Absinthe--The Cocaine of the Nineteenth Century: A History of the Hallucinogenic Drug and Its Effect on Artists and Writers in Europe and the United States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GYjNXXX_h_AC&pg=PA106|date=2004|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-0786419678|pages=105–107}}</ref>
[[File:Marcellin Desboutin graphite self portrait with hat and pipe.jpg|thumb|Debonair friend of Degas self portrait in pencil with cafe attire]]

==Reception==
At its first showing in 1876, the picture was panned by critics, who called it ugly and disgusting.<ref name="Lanier2004"/> It was seen at the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877, but not again until it appeared at auction in 1892, when it was again treated with derision.<ref name="Lanier2004"/><ref name=Discovering/> The painting was shown again at the [[Grafton Gallery]] in England in 1893, this time entitled {{Lang|fr|L'Absinthe}}, where it sparked even greater controversy.<ref name="Lanier2016"/> The people and the absinthe represented in the painting were considered by English critics to be shockingly degraded and uncouth.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/degas-sickert-and-toulouse-lautrec/degas-sickert-and-toulouse-8 |work=[[Tate Britain]] |title=L'Absinthe in focus: London and Paris 1870–1910 |access-date=25 September 2018}}</ref> Many regarded the painting as a blow to morality; this was the general view of such Victorians as Sir [[William Blake Richmond]] and [[Walter Crane]] when shown the painting in London. That reaction was typical of the age, revealing the deep suspicion with which Victorian England had regarded art in France since the early days of the [[Barbizon School]], and the desire to find a morally uplifting lesson in works of art. Many English critics viewed the picture as a warning lesson against absinthe, and the French in general. The comment by [[George Moore (novelist)|George Moore]] on the woman depicted was: "What a [[whore]]!" He added, "the tale is not a pleasant one, but it is a lesson". However, in his book ''Modern Painting'', Moore regretted assigning a moral lesson to the work, claiming that "the picture is merely a work of art, and has nothing to do with drink or sociology."<ref>George Moore, ''Modern Painting'' (London: Walter Scott Publishing, 1898), p. 269.</ref> Despite all this, the painting was originally owned in Britain: it was bought in 1876 from the London gallery of dealer Charles Deschamps by [[Brighton]] collector Captain Henry Hill. Following his death, it was bought at the February 1892 London auction by Scottish dealer [[Alexander Reid (art dealer)|Alexander Reid]] for his client Arthur Kay, who was, however, ambivalent about the painting and sold it in April 1893 to a Paris dealer.<ref name=Discovering>{{cite book|page=50|title=Discovering Degas|location=London|publisher=Philip Wilson Publishers|year=2024|isbn=978-1-78130-129-6}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Cultural references to absinthe]]
* ''[[Automat (painting)|Automat]]'', similar subject
* ''[[Plum Brandy]]'', similar subject

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |first= Barnaby |last= Conrad III |author-link= Barnaby Conrad III |date= 1988 |title= Absinthe: History in a Bottle |publisher= [[Chronicle books]] |isbn= 0811816508 |pages= 43–50}}
* {{cite book |first= Phil |last= Baker |date= 2001 |title= The Book of Absinthe: A Cultural History |publisher= Grove Press books |isbn= 0802139930 |pages= 121–124}}

==External links==
* [http://www.absinthefever.com/green-fairy Green Fairy: The symbol of liberté] — Examines {{Lang|fr|L'Absinthe}} as a fitting example of the "nervous fear that the decadent ways of the Continent might reach the shores of the British Isles".
* [http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire/commentaire_id/dans-un-cafe-167.html?no_cache=1&cHash=18c0b5fa01 Musée d'Orsay discussion of the painting] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131213223441/http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire/commentaire_id/dans-un-cafe-167.html?no_cache=1&cHash=18c0b5fa01 |date=2013-12-13 }}
* [http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15324coll10/id/60673/rec/6 ''Degas: The Artist's Mind''], exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art fully available online as PDF, which contains material on {{Lang|fr|L'Absinthe}} (see index)

{{Edgar Degas}}
{{Musée d'Orsay}}
{{Absinthe}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Absinthe, L'}}
[[Category:1876 paintings]]
[[Category:Absinthe]]
[[Category:Paintings in the Musée d'Orsay]]
[[Category:Paintings by Edgar Degas]]
[[Category:Food and drink paintings]]
[[Category:Oil on canvas paintings]]