Bon Bock Café

1881

We are in the warmly lit interior of a café where a pale-skinned woman stands in profile at a dark wooden bar that extends away from us in this horizontal painting. The woman stands behind the bar to our left and faces our right. She has upswept brown hair and wears a navy-blue dress. The entire scene is loosely painted, and the elevated area just beyond the woman is especially loose, built up with thick strokes of seafoam green, black, and daubs of white. A cluster of vertical amber-colored, brown, and light grass-green strokes suggest bottles sitting along its top. Another object, perhaps a tall chalice, sits on the top of the bar, which is painted with a swipe of white paint. Crimson-red and pine-green daubs just beyond it suggest flowers. The room is painted in shades of slate blue, tan, butter and mustard yellow, with sage green creating cool shadows. A column near the center of the room, beyond the bar, divides the scene vertically. To our the right is a piece of wooden furniture with a small table and chair placed before it. A tall brass chandelier hanging above has three arms curving upward to support silvery globes. A dark blue object, perhaps a hat, hangs on the wall nearby. To the right of the chandelier is a roughly painted rectangle filled with soft blue, white, and pink shapes that suggests a mirror or window into another room. In the background, the lower half of the far corner is stone blue and cinnamon brown. The painting is dated in the lower left, “Juin 1881.”

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on wood

  • Credit Line

    Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 26.6 x 34.9 cm (10 1/2 x 13 3/4 in.)
    framed: 47.3 x 55.2 x 7.3 cm (18 5/8 x 21 3/4 x 2 7/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1970.17.38


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Sir Victor Schuster [1885-1962], London, by 1942.[1] Capt. Edward H. Molyneux [1891-1974], Paris, by 1952; sold 15 August 1955 to Ailsa Mellon Bruce, New York; bequest 1970 to NGA.
[1]Lent by Schuster to the 1942 exhibition at the National Gallery in London, Nineteenth Century French Paintings, no. 25.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1942

  • Nineteenth Century French Paintings, National Gallery of Art, London, 1943, no. 25, as by Manet

1952

  • French Paintings from the Molyneux Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1952, unnumbered checklist, as by Edouard Manet.

1961

  • French Paintings of the Nineteenth Century from the Collection of Mrs. Mellon Bruce, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1961, no. 25, repro

Bibliography

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 212, repro., as Manner of Manet.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 247, repro.

Inscriptions

lower left: Juin 1881

Wikidata ID

Q20188879


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