L'Absinthe
Two figures at a marble table in the Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes on the Place Pigalle, Paris — the Impressionists' own café.
Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes, place Pigalle, Paris
The painting shows a real, identified place that you can find today. The exact spot the artist worked from is not necessarily known.
L'Absinthe — at a glance
- Artist
- Edgar Degas (1834–1917)
- Year
- c. 1875–1876
- Movement
- Impressionism / Realism
- Place
- Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes, Place Pigalle, Paris 9e
- Viewpoint
- A corner of the Impressionists' own café — building survives, café gone
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Now at
- Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Overview
L'Absinthe — its real title is In a Café — is a painting by Edgar Degas of about 1875–76. It shows a man and a woman sitting side by side at a café table, a glass of the greenish spirit absinthe in front of the woman, both staring blankly away from each other. It is oil on canvas and hangs in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
Shown in London in 1893, it caused an outcry as a supposed picture of degradation and drink; Degas's defenders pointed out that it is a posed studio-and-café composition, not a documentary.
Where was L'Absinthe painted?
Museum interpretation The setting is the Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes on the Place Pigalle, in the ninth arrondissement of Paris, on the edge of Montmartre. From the early 1870s it was the regular evening meeting place of Degas, Manet and the Impressionist circle, replacing the Café Guerbois. The building on the Place Pigalle survives; the café itself is long gone.
How we know
- Set in a real Paris café; the listed subject 'Paris' is the whole city.
What is in the painting?
The two sitters are pushed to the right and cut by the frame. The woman, in a pale dress and hat, slumps over her absinthe; the man, in a hat with a pipe, looks off to the right. Empty marble tables zig-zag across the foreground; a newspaper on a wooden baton lies between them; the mirror behind reflects the room.
The models were friends of Degas: the actress Ellen Andrée and the painter and printmaker Marcellin Desboutin. Both objected later to being taken for real drinkers.
Look closely
The glass of absinthe
The cloudy pale-green drink in front of the woman — the one bright colour, and the detail that named the picture.
The empty tables
Marble café tables zig-zag across the foreground, pushing the figures into the corner.
The newspaper on a baton
A café reading-paper on its wooden holder lies on the table between the two.
The mirror behind
The café's back mirror reflects the windows and the room.
Analysis
Composition & perspective
The empty tables in the foreground and the off-centre, cropped figures give the scene a photographic, overheard feeling.
Scholarship Degas builds the design on the diagonal march of empty tables from lower left, isolating the two figures at the upper right and cutting the man at the edge. The steep, tilted floor and the abrupt cropping are borrowed from photography and Japanese prints, and make the viewer feel like an unnoticed neighbour.
Colour and light
Muted browns, greys and beiges, with the pale green of the absinthe as the one sharp note.
The palette is deliberately drab — the café's woodwork and stone, the sitters' worn clothes — so that the cloudy green glass and the woman's slack posture carry the mood. The light is flat, indoor, late-afternoon.
Meaning and interpretation
Interpretations differ. What the artist documented, what museums and scholars propose, and later or speculative theories are marked and kept separate.
Not a temperance picture
Nineteenth-century viewers read it as a warning about absinthe and moral decline. Degas gave it a neutral title and treated it as a study of modern city life and of two people sharing a table without contact.
Isolation in a crowd
It is usually discussed now as an image of urban loneliness — companionship reduced to proximity — and as a key example of Degas's ‘keyhole’ realism.
History & provenance
The painting was in British collections when it caused its 1893 scandal; it later returned to France and entered the national collections. It hangs in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
Sources
- Musée d'Orsay, Paris — collection entry for Edgar Degas, ‘Dans un café’ (‘L'Absinthe’, c. 1875–76; oil on canvas)
- National Gallery, London — background note on the 1893 exhibition and the models Ellen Andrée and Marcellin Desboutin
Frequently asked
Where is L'Absinthe set?
In the Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes on the Place Pigalle in Paris, on the edge of Montmartre — the evening meeting place of Degas, Manet and the Impressionist circle in the 1870s.
Can you visit it?
The building on the Place Pigalle survives, but the café itself closed long ago.
Are the two people real drinkers?
No. They were posed by friends of Degas — the actress Ellen Andrée and the artist Marcellin Desboutin — both of whom later objected to being mistaken for the down-and-out characters in the picture.
Why was the painting a scandal?
When it was shown in London in 1893, critics attacked it as a degrading picture of drink and vice. Degas's supporters replied that it was a carefully staged composition about modern life, not a real scene.
Where is the painting now?
In the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
Related paintings
More by Edgar Degas
A Cotton Office in New Orleans
Young Spartans Exercising
Place de la Concorde
