The Absinthe Drinker (Le buveur d'absinthe)

1862

Edouard Manet

Associated Names
Edouard Manet

Artist, French, 1832 - 1883

This print depicts a man seated on a low ledge. The man is wearing a top hat that covers his hair and a cloak that drapes over his shoulders and extends down to his knees. Below the edge of the cloak, he wears pants and dark shoes. The man’s face is slightly turned to the right, and we can see wide eyes, a small nose, and thin lips. The man casts a shadow on the wall behind him, and a bottle is lying on its side in front of him, near the bottom-right corner. The background is filled with sketchy, crosshatching lines on the off-white paper.

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    etching on Chinese paper

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Dimensions

    image: 24.8 × 14.3 cm (9 3/4 × 5 5/8 in.)
    plate: 28.8 × 15.8 cm (11 5/16 × 6 1/4 in.)
    sheet: 34.5 × 22.5 cm (13 9/16 × 8 7/8 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1943.3.5754

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Harris 1970, no. 16, State ii/iii

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Charles Sessler, Philadelphia); purchased by Lessing J. Rosenwald [1891-1979], 1930; gift to NGA, 1943.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1944

  • Prints from the Rosenwald Collection, Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Memphis, TN; and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 1944, no cat.

1956

  • Prints by the French Impressionists from the Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1956, no cat.

1962

  • Etchings and Lithographs by Edouard Manet, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1962, no cat.

1963

  • Modern Prints and Illustrated Books from the Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1963, no cat.

1995

  • Prints by James McNeill Whistler and His Contemporaries, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1995, as The Absinthe Drinker.

2002

  • Manet/Velázquez, La manière espagnole au XIXe siècle [Manet/Velázquez, The French Taste for Spanish Painting], Musée d'Orsay, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2002-2003, no. 167, fig. 9.29 (shown only in New York).

Bibliography

1970

  • Harris, Jean C. Edouard Manet, graphic works; a definitive catalogue raisonne. New York: Collector's Editions, 1970.

Inscriptions

in plate, in image, at upper right: ed. Manet.; upper right, in graphite by a later hand: M8

Markings

none

Watermarks

none

Wikidata ID

Q65019568

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