Posted – Art in the Nineteenth Century

The Lady of Shalott

Elaine of Astolat, also known as Elayne of Ascolat and other variants of the name, is a figure in Arthurian legend, a lady from the castle of Astolat who dies of her unrequited love for Sir Lancelot. Well-known versions of her story appear in Sir Thomas Malory book Le Morte d’Arthur, in 1485, Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s mid nineteenth century Idylls of the King, and his poem The Lady of Shalott, which was based on the version in the 13th-century Italian novellina La Damigella di Scalot.

Tennyson’s poem was the inspiration for many painters, especially for those connected to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, for whom the theme was particularly attractive.

The original version is at the end of this post.

John William Waterhouse, 1849-1917, painted three scenes from the poem

John William Waterhouse, *The Lady of Shalott*, 1888, oil on canvas, 153 x 200 cm, Tate Gallery, London, UK

John William Waterhouse, *The Lady of Shalott looking at Lancelot*, 1894, oil on canvas, 142 x 86 cm, Art Gallery, Leeds, UK

and, even though it was not painted in the nineteenth century

John William Waterhouse. *I am half-sick of shadows, said the Lady of Shalott*, 1915, oil on canvas, 100 x 74 cm, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada

William Holman Hunt, 1827-1910, was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His paintings were notable for their great attention to detail, vivid colour, and elaborate symbolism, influenced by the writings of John Ruskin, according to whom the world itself should be read as a system of visual signs. For Hunt it was the duty of the artist to reveal the correspondence between sign and fact. He worked on this painting over a period of twenty years.

William Holman Hunt, *The Lady of Shalott*, c. 1888–1905, oil on canvas, 188 x 146 cm, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, USA

William Maw Egley, 1826-1916, was an English artist whose work is now relatively unknown. Most of his paintings were humorous or genre scenes of urban and rural life, depicting such subjects as harvest festivals and contemporary fashions.

William Maw Egley, *The Lady of Shalott*, 1858, oil on canvas, 88 x 101 cm, Museum, Sheffield, UK

John Atkinson Grimshaw, 1836-1893

John Atkinson Grimshaw, *The Lady of Shalott*, 1875, oil on canvas, 61 x 94 cm, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, USA

Walter Crane, 1845-1915

He was part of the Arts and Crafts movement and produced an array of paintings, illustrations, children’s books, ceramic tiles and other decorative arts.

Walter Crane, *The Lady of Shalott*, 1862, oil on canvas, 24 x 29 cm, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, USA

Arthur Hughes, 1832-1915

Arthur Hughes, The Lady of Shalott, 1873, oil on canvas, 93 x 158 cm, Private Collection

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Lady of Shalott, 1833

Part I
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro’ the field the road runs by
To many-tower’d Camelot;
The yellow-leaved waterlily
The green-sheathed daffodilly
Tremble in the water chilly
Round about Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens shiver.
The sunbeam showers break and quiver
In the stream that runneth ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.

Underneath the bearded barley,
The reaper, reaping late and early,
Hears her ever chanting cheerly,
Like an angel, singing clearly,
O’er the stream of Camelot.
Piling the sheaves in furrows airy,
Beneath the moon, the reaper weary
Listening whispers, ‘ ‘Tis the fairy,
Lady of Shalott.’

The little isle is all inrail’d
With a rose-fence, and overtrail’d
With roses: by the marge unhail’d
The shallop flitteth silken sail’d,
Skimming down to Camelot.
A pearl garland winds her head:
She leaneth on a velvet bed,
Full royally apparelled,
The Lady of Shalott.

Part II
No time hath she to sport and play:
A charmed web she weaves alway.
A curse is on her, if she stay
Her weaving, either night or day,
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be;
Therefore she weaveth steadily,
Therefore no other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.

She lives with little joy or fear.
Over the water, running near,
The sheepbell tinkles in her ear.
Before her hangs a mirror clear,
Reflecting tower’d Camelot.
And as the mazy web she whirls,
She sees the surly village churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls
Pass onward from Shalott.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd lad,
Or long-hair’d page in crimson clad,
Goes by to tower’d Camelot:
And sometimes thro’ the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror’s magic sights,
For often thro’ the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, came from Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead
Came two young lovers lately wed;
‘I am half sick of shadows,’ said
The Lady of Shalott.

Part III
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves,
And flam’d upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel’d
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.

The gemmy bridle glitter’d free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down from Camelot:
And from his blazon’d baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
Beside remote Shalott.

All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell’d shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn’d like one burning flame together,
As he rode down from Camelot.
As often thro’ the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over green Shalott.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d;
On burnish’d hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow’d
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down from Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flash’d into the crystal mirror,
‘Tirra lirra, tirra lirra:’
Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom
She made three paces thro’ the room
She saw the water-flower bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look’d down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack’d from side to side;
‘The curse is come upon me,’ cried
The Lady of Shalott.

Part IV
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower’d Camelot;
Outside the isle a shallow boat
Beneath a willow lay afloat,
Below the carven stern she wrote,
The Lady of Shalott.

A cloudwhite crown of pearl she dight,
All raimented in snowy white
That loosely flew (her zone in sight
Clasp’d with one blinding diamond bright)
Her wide eyes fix’d on Camelot,
Though the squally east-wind keenly
Blew, with folded arms serenely
By the water stood the queenly
Lady of Shalott.

With a steady stony glance—
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Beholding all his own mischance,
Mute, with a glassy countenance—
She look’d down to Camelot.
It was the closing of the day:
She loos’d the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

As when to sailors while they roam,
By creeks and outfalls far from home,
Rising and dropping with the foam,
From dying swans wild warblings come,
Blown shoreward; so to Camelot
Still as the boathead wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her chanting her deathsong,
The Lady of Shalott.

A longdrawn carol, mournful, holy,
She chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her eyes were darken’d wholly,
And her smooth face sharpen’d slowly,
Turn’d to tower’d Camelot:
For ere she reach’d upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,
By garden wall and gallery,
A pale, pale corpse she floated by,
Deadcold, between the houses high,
Dead into tower’d Camelot.
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
To the planked wharfage came:
Below the stern they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.

They cross’d themselves, their stars they blest,
Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire, and guest.
There lay a parchment on her breast,
That puzzled more than all the rest,
The wellfed wits at Camelot.
‘The web was woven curiously,
The charm is broken utterly,
Draw near and fear not,—this is I,
The Lady of Shalott.’

Sisters

William Bouguereau

He was immensely popular both in France and the United States. Because of the nature of his work he was intensely disliked by the impressionists, and Degas coined the word Bouguereauté to describe any work in the style of the academic painter. He was notable for his sentimental portraits, and also for his female nudes, aimed at the taste of rich Americans.

Left, William Adolphe Bouguereau, Sur la grève, 1896, oil on canvas, 142 x 92 cm, Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI and right, La Soeur ainée, 1869, oil on canvas, 130 x 97 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, for which he used is daughter, Henriette, and son, Paul, as models

In passing, and with reference to the previous post, he also painted a version of the wave.

William Bouguereau, La vague, 1896, oil on canvas, 121 x 161, Private Collection

John Everett Millais

The girls are Millais’ daughters, Mary, on the left aged eight, Effie, ten, and Alice Caroline, five. The idea of the artist using his own daughters as models was new at the the time. Apart from the fact that thet were cheap, if not always willing, the picture is an indication of the love he had for his family.

John Everett Millais, Hearts are Trumps, 1872, oil on canvas, 166 x 220 cm, Tate Gallery, London, UK

Millais was commissioned to paint this portrait by writer and art collector Walter Armstrong. It features Armstrong’s daughters Elizabeth, Diana and Mary. Armstrong hoped the painting would help to raise the social profile of his family. The card game, and the title of the work, hint at competition over who would marry first. This was seen as important at the time for women of their social class. This work presents the social structures and expectations of the period as a game that these women have learnt to play skilfully.

Two portraits of Effie Gray. Left, George Frederick Watts, Euphemia (Effie) Chalmers Gray, Mrs John Ruskin, Later Lady Millais, 1851, a drawing in the possession of the Nationa Trust, UK, and right Thomas Richmond, Euphemia (‘Effie’) Chalmers (née Gray), Lady Millais, (detail), 1851, oil on board, 32 x 21 cm, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK.

She married John Ruskin, but the marriage was unconsummated and annulled. She then married Millais, and the couple had nine children. Millais had a complicated relationship with Effie’s sister, Sophie, and painted her when she was thirteen years old.

John Everett Millais, *Portrait of a Girl*, 1857, oil on paper overlaid on paper, 30 x 23 cm, Private Collection

Théodore Chassériau

The relationship between Théodore Chassériau and his sisters Adèle and Aline was close, and at the time was rumoured to be incestuous. Although in this painting they could be taken as twins, Adèle, on the left was thirty three and Aline was twenty one. Théodore himself was twenty three.

Bramwell Brontë

The only known portrait of the Brontë sisters.

From left to right: Anne, Emily and Charlotte Brontë. The portrait was known from a description of it by the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell who saw it in 1853. It was thought to have been lost until it was discovered folded up on top of a cupboard by the second wife of Charlotte Brontë’s husband, the Reverend A.B. Nicholls, in 1914. In the centre of the group a male figure, previously concealed by a painted pillar, is now visible; it is almost certainly a self-portrait of the artist, their brother Branwell Brontë.

Edwin Landseer, attributed, *The Brontë Sisters?,* 1830s?, watercolour, … Private Collection

This painting is beset by many question marks, and the claim that it is a group portrait of the Brontë sisters has yet to be established.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Irene was the eldest daughter of Louise Cahen d’Anvers and her banker husband Louis Raphaël Cahen d’Anver. He had met the family through the collector Charles Ephrussi, who was proprietor of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts and also Louise’s lover.

Louise paid Renoir 1,500 francs for the painting.

Afterwards, the family decided that the other two sisters would be painted together. Elisabeth, and Alice, in February 1876, when they were six and five years old.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, *Rose et bleu, les demoiselles Cahen d’Anvers*, 1881, oil on canvas, 119 x 74 cm, Museu de Arte, São Paulo, Brazil

In 1895, Alice married the British Army officer Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend who led his command to its destruction at Kut al Amara in 1916. Alice lived until 1965 and died in Nice, aged 89.

After divorcing her first husband, the diplomat and count Jean de Forceville, Elisabeth married Alfred Émile Denfert Rochereau, whom she later divorced as well. Although she had converted to Catholicism at a young age, she was sent to Auschwitz because of her Jewish descent and died on the way to the concentration camp in March 1944, aged 69.

The Wave

Courbet spent the summer of 1869 at Etretat on the Normandy coast and painted several pictures of waves breaking on the shore. The motif of the single wave was inspired by Japanese colour prints which were widely available in Paris in the 1860s.

Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave at Kanagawa, c1829-1833, polychrome woodcut, 25 x 37 cm. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, France

Other artists had been to Etretat, and were fascinated by the sea, and especially by the cliffs.

Claude Monet, Mer agitée à Etretat, 1883, huile sur toile, 81 x 100 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, France

Eugène Boudin, Etretat, La falaise d’aval au soleil couchant, 1890, oil on canvas, 46 x 65 cm, Private collection

Eugène Delacroix, Les Falaises d’Etretat, 1849, gouache on paper, 15 x 24 cm, Museum, Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands

Delacroix did not have the luxury of the train, but visited Normandie on several occasions, the first in 1829.

Courbet himself also painted the cliffs

Gustave Courbet, La Falaise d’Etretat après l’orage, 1870, oil on canvas, 130 x 162 cm, Musée d’orsay, Paris, France

Gustave Courbet, Les Falaises d’Étretat , 1869, oil on canvas,
Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen

But it was the idea of the single powerful wave which fascinated him.

Courbet, Gustave, La Vague, 1870, oil on canvas, Private Collection

Courbet, Gustave, La Vague, 1870, oil on canvas, 73 x 93 cm,
National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, Japan

Courbet, Gustave, La Vague, 1869, oil on canvas, 46 x 55 cm, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK

Courbet, Gustave, La Vague, 1869, oil on canvas, 72 x 117 cm, Museum of modern art André Malraux, Le Havre, France

In the periodical “Gil Blas” on 28th September 1886, Guy de Maupassant recounted a visit he made to Courbet during his stay at Etretat: “In a huge, empty room, a fat, dirty, greasy man was slapping white paint on a blank canvas with a kitchen knife. From time to time he would press his face against the window and look out at the storm. The sea came so close that it seemed to batter the house and completely envelope it in its foam and roar. The salty water beat against the windowpanes like hail, and ran down the walls. On his mantelpiece was a bottle of cider next to a half-filled glass. Now and then, Courbet would take a few swigs, and then return to his work. This work became The Wave, and caused quite a sensation around the world”.

Courbet, Gustave, La Vague, 1870, oil on canvas, 66 x 91 cm, Musée des Beaux Arts, Lyon, France

In this work, the water has become almost solid and rises like a cliff against the sky.

As can be seen by the dates, Courbet made sketches of what he saw, and the works were painted later, from his memory and his imagination.

Paul Baudry also painted a well known image of a wave…

Paul Baudry, La perle et la vague, 1862, oil on canvas, 84 x 178 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain

…but it is possible that he was more interested in the model than the wave.

Jeanne Duval

Edouard Manet, *La Maîtresse de Baudelaire*, 1862, oil on canvas, 90 x 113 cm, Szépmüvészeti Müzeum, Budapest, Hungary

“Sorcière au flanc d’ébène, enfant des noirs minuits”

I saw this painting in 2016, in an exhibition entitled “Chefs-d’œuvre des musées de Budapest”, in the Musée de Luxembourg in Paris. A small watercolour study for the work is in Bremen.m

Edouard Manet, Jeanne Duval: La Maîtresse de Baudelaire, 1862, watercolour, 17 x 24 cm, Kunsthalle, Bremen, Germany

Manet was thirty when he painted this sad and superficially ugly portrait of the mistress of his friend, the poet Baudelaire, 1821-1867. She was suffering from syphilis, partially paralysed and almost blind. She is thought to have died shorlty afterwards, although it has been claimed that she was seen years later, in an even more pitiable state.
Almost nothing is known about her life, not even her real name: the only document, since destroyed in a fire, is from the Maison de Santé Dubois, where she was treated in 1859. In it, she is identified as being thirty two years old and having been born in Haiti. If this is correct, then she would have been fifteen when she met Baudelaire in 1842.

« La taille est longue en buste, bien prise, ondulante comme couleuvre, et particulièrement remarquable par l’exubérant, invraisemblable développement des pectoraux. Rien de gauche, nulle trace de ces dénonciations simiesques qui trahissent et poursuivent le sang de Cham jusqu’à l’épui sement des générations»

Nadar, Charles Baudelaire intime, Obsidiane, 1985, p. 10.

She was a marginal figure, existing as a part time actress, prostitute and of course the mistress of Baudelaire, who set her up in an apartment on the Ile de la Cité.

Jeanne Duval and Charles Baudelaire, photographed by Nadar

Constantin Guys, Portrait of Jeanne Duval, ink and watercolour, sd, Private Collection

This painting by Constantin Guys, 1802-1892, is presumed to be a portrait of Jeanne, although not certain. There appears to be little similarity between it and Nadar’s photograph, adding to the mystery. Guys was the anonymous model for Baudelaire’s long essay “Le peintre de la vie moderne”; 1863.

Gustave Courbet, *L’Atelier du peintre*, 1855, oil on canvas, 361 × 598 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France

In Courbet’s monumental work, L’atelier du peintre, the figure of Jeanne was originally placed next to Baudelaire against a pillar. At Baudelaire’s request, probably after one of the couple’s many quarrels, her image was erased by the artist. In the work, the depiction of Baudelaire was based on Courbet’s earlier portrait.

Gustave Courbet, Portrait de Charles Baudelaire, 1848, oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm, Musée Fabre, Montpellier, France

Manet and Baudelaire were friends. Baudelaire was a supportive critic of Manet’s work. As well as Jeanne, they both died of syphilis, one of the great killers of the nineteenth century. The cause of the disease was not identified until 1895, and the first effective treatment was not available until 1910.

Edouard Manet, Portrait de Charles Baudelaire, etching, 1865, 12 x 9 cm, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, USA

Mademoiselle Rachel

Elisabeth Félix, better known only as Mademoiselle Rachel, 1821-1858, was a French actress, born in Switzerland to a poor family. She became a prominent figure in French society, and was the mistress of Napoleon III among others.

The family arrived in Paris in 1830, and from the age of nine she earned money by singing in the streets. She took classes in elocution and singing, and by the age of seventeen, had begun to act on the Paris stage.

She was admired for her intelligence, hard work and her acting ability. Although the public taste for classical tragedy had waned, she helped revive interest in Corneille and Racine, rejecting the new romantic movement, which was becoming increasingly popular in France.

Charles Louis Müller, Rachel in Lady Macbeth, 1849, oil on canvas, 129 x 93 cm, **Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme**, Paris, France.

Her fame spread throughout Europe after success in London in 1841, where she was seen by Charlotte Brontë, who is said to have based the character of Vashti in “Villette” on her. Her work had a great influence on the career of Sarah Bernhardt.

Félix’s health declined after a long tour of Russia. It was after this that Geffroy painted her in the rôle of Catherine I, in the drama “La Czarine” by Eugène Scribe.

She died from tuberculosis in 1858, aged 36, in Le Cannet. Efforts by newspapers to publish pictures of her on her deathbed led to the introduction of privacy rights into French law.

Le déjeuner des canotiers

In this composition Renoir painted fourteen of his friends, most of whom have been positively identified, although some artistic liberty many have been taken.

The son of the owner of La Maison Fournaise, one of Renoir’s favourite restaurants, in Chatou, west of Paris.

Alphonsine Fournaise, the daughter of the proprietor

Before this painting, Alphonsine had married and gone to live in Paris. She was widowed at the age of 26, and returned to Chatou.

Renoir met Aline, who was 20 years his junior, in about 1879. They eventually married, in 1890, and had three sons: Paul, an actor; Jean, a film director; and Claude, a ceramisist.

Baron Raoul Barbier, a former cavalry officer

The son of a former French ambassador to Constantinople. He himself had been mayor of Saigon during the French occupation of Vietnam. It is not certain that he is represented here.

She was an actress, and a frequent model for Renoir

Traditionally this figure has been identified as the painter Gustave Caillebotte, although it is not a likeness. He is known to have been bearded, with a jutting jaw.

She was an actress, but it was the brief period in the 1870s, when she was a model for a number of artists, most importantly Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, that made her name.

He was the editor of the journal “La France nouvelle“;

It has been suggested that this portrait is of Maurice Réalier-Dumas, a painter, who later became involved with the Art Nouveau movement. He would have been 19 in this painting.

Poet, critic, and Ephrussi’s personal secretary

Charles Ephrussi, a banker and editor of Gazette des beaux-arts

Charles Ephrussi was a French art critic, art historian, and art collector. He also was a part-owner and then editor of, as well as a contributor to the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, the most important art historical periodical in France.

An official in the Ministry of the Interior. His son, Pierre, was a French screenwriter and film actor, who wrote the screenplays for several Jean Renoir silent films during the 1920s

Artist, and a close friend of Renoir; was a witness to his marriage to Aline Charigot in 1890.

An actress, whom Renoir painted a dozen times between 1877 and 1881. Here, she is shown with her hands ver her ears; shutting out the comments of her two companions?

Finally, the usually overlooked and meticulous still life in the foreground of the painting.

The Café

During the second half of the nineteenth century in Paris, and especially during the period following the recovery from the Franco-Prussian War, which later became known as La Belle Epoque, a spirit of optimism gained ground amongst the bourgeoisie and middle classes.

The café became a meeting place for friends to meet, for business to be carried on, and relationships to be be forged.

Scène de café à Paris, 1884 - Louis Anet Sabatier — Louis Anet Sabatier, Scène de café à Paris, 1884, oil on wood, Private Collection

The café became a favourite subject for artists, as an exercise in painting en plein air, as well as depicting life in the world around them. It was also an oppotunity to depict their friends in an informal setting, as in Renoir’s painting of the Café Fournaise at Chatou, not far from Paris.

Women on a Cafe Terrace in the Evening by Edgar Degas - 1877 — Edgar Degas, Femmes à la terrasse d’un café le soir, 1877, pastel, Musée d’Orsay

The pastel by Degas shows a different side of café life. The women are prostitutes, waiting for clients. The gesture of the woman in the centre serves as a message to the others, although the meaning is not clear.

El Cafe de Montmartre by Santiago Rusiñol Prats - 1890 — Santiago Rusiñol Prats, El Cafe de Montmartre, 1890, oil on canvas, 80 x 116 cm, Museu de Montserrat, Montserrat, Spain

The scene is Café des Incohérents 16 bis, rue Fontaine, IXe arrondissement, Paris

La Guinguette, an outdoor cafe in Montmartre by Vincent van Gogh, 1886 — Vincent van Gogh, La guinguette à Montmartre, 1886, oil on canvas, 49 x 64 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France

Woman in a Cafe by Edgar Degas - circa 1877 — Edgar Degas, Woman in a Cafe, c1877, pastel, Private Collection

Cafe Maxim, Paris by Jean-Louis Forain — Jean-Louis Forain, Cafe Maxim, Paris, oil on canvas, 55 x 45 cm, Private Collection

Conversation at the Cafe by Giovanni Boldini - 1877-1878 — Giovanni Boldini, Conversazione al Caffè, 1877-1878, oil on canvas, location unknown

A Parisian Cafe by Ilia Efimovich Repin - 1875 — Ilia Efimovich Repin, A Parisian Cafe, 1875, oil on canvas, 121 x 192 cm, Private Collection

At the Cafe by Pierre Auguste Renoir - 1877 — Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Au café, 1877, oil on canvas

The Cafe by Pierre Auguste Renoir - circa 1874-1877 — Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Au café, 1877, oil on canvas, *Kröller-Müller Museum*, Otterlo, Netherlands

Cafe-Concert by Édouard Manet - 1878 — Edouard Manet, Cafe-Concert, 1878, oil on canvas, 47 x 39 cm, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD, USA

In a Cafe by Gustave Caillebotte - 1880 — Gustave Caillebotte, Dans un café, 1880, oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, France

A Parisian Cafe by Edouaro Leon Garrido - 1886 — Edouaro Leon Garrido, A Parisian Cafe, 1886, oil on panel, 55 x 45 cm, Private Collection

Absinthe

During the eighteenth century the distillation of grains led to the development of liqueurs, and the production of absinthe in Switzerland. The recipe was adapted by Henri-Louis Pernod, who opened a factory in Pontarlier in 1805.

Vincent van Gogh, Café Table with Absinthe, 1887, oil on canvas, 46 x 33 cm, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

The drink was immensely popular during the second half of the nineteenth century, especially in France. Soldiers in Algeria in the 1840s had added wormwood, one of the principal ingredients of absinthe, to their wine. The effects of the use of absinthe were recognised by 1850. Sufferers appeared dazed and incoherent and experienced hallucinations. It was recognised that these symptoms were not from alcohol alone, but from the other ingredients.

Edouard Manet, Le buveur d’absinthe, 1859, oil on canvas, 181 x 106 cm, Ny Carslberg Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark.

To overcome the bitter taste of absinthe, a cube of sugar in a silver sieve was placed across the top of a glass containing a small amount of absinthe. Cold water was then poured over the sugar cube into the glass. The ritual itself became an attraction to the drink, which was known as “la fée verte”.

Honoré Daumier, Fumeur et buveur d’absinthe, c1855-1860, oil on wood, 27 x 35 cm, Collection G. Bührle, Zurich, Switzerland.

Edgar Degas, l’Absinthe, or dans un café, 1873, oil on canvas, 68 x 92 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France

The atmosphere of recovery that followed the Franco-Prussian War after 1871, introduced l’heure verte which became a daily event; some Parisian clubs and cafes were dedicated to the liqueur.

Jean-François Rafaelli, The Absinthe Drinkers, 1881, oil on canvas, Legion of Honor Museum, San Franscisco, CA, USA

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, M Boileau au café, 1893, oil on canvas, Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, USA

At Gennelle, Absinthe Drinker, 1886 - Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec — Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, A Gennelle, buveuse d’absinthe, 1886, oil on cnvas, 55 x 49 cm, Private Collection

However, statistics began to show that mental illness, stillbirths and serious crime were the result of absinthe drinking. Whether the figures were accurate or not, public opinion led to the prohibition of the sale and manufacture of absinthe in France in 1915. Pernod changed to the production of pastis, an aniseed flavoured liqueur, similar in appearance to absinthe. The original drink became legal again in France in 2011.