L'Absinthe—title also translated as The Absinthe Drinker or Glass of Absinthe—is a painting by Edgar Degas. Some original title translations are A sketch of a French Café, then Figures at Café, the title was finally changed in 1893 to L’Absinthe (the name the piece is known by today). The work is now in the permanent collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
Painted in 1876, it depicts two figures, a woman and man, who sit in the center and right...
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L'Absinthe—title also translated as The Absinthe Drinker or Glass of Absinthe—is a painting by Edgar Degas. Some original title translations are A sketch of a French Café, then Figures at Café, the title was finally changed in 1893 to L’Absinthe (the name the piece is known by today). The work is now in the permanent collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
Painted in 1876, it depicts two figures, a woman and man, who sit in the center and right of this painting, respectively. The man, wearing a hat, looks right, off the canvas, while the woman, dressed formally and also wearing a hat, stares vacantly downward. A glass filled with the titular greenish liquid sits before her. The painting is a representation of the increasing social isolation in Paris during its stage of rapid growth.
The woman in the painting is the actress Ellen Andrée, the man Marcellin Desboutin, painter, engraver, and, at the same time, celebrated bohemian character. The café where they are taking their...
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