In a Café (L'Absinthe)

1875–76

Oil on canvas, 92 × 68.5 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris

A man and a woman sit side by side in a café, silent and apart, a glass of absinthe before her. It is among Degas's bleakest city scenes.

Degas hems the pair in between empty tabletops and the wall behind them. Unlike most of his Impressionist friends, he preferred enclosed city spaces to open landscape.
Shown at the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877, though not in the catalogue.
Degas painted it in the studio, with friends posing: the actress Ellen Andrée and the engraver Marcellin Desboutin.
Look at the mirror behind them, where their shadows merge into one dark shape.
Came to the Louvre in 1911 with Count Isaac de Camondo's bequest.

Absinthe, a strong anise spirit, was thought harmful and later banned in France. The café, the Nouvelle Athènes on the place Pigalle, was a meeting place for artists.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain