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Café Luxembourg

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1902.119)
Number: 436
Date: 1888/1893
Medium: etching
Size: 98 x 135 mm
Signed: butterfly at upper left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 1
Catalogues: K.434; M.425
Impressions taken from this plate  (1)

KEYWORD

café, city, horse, people, shop.

TITLE

There is only one known title, as in the following examples:

'Café Luxembourg' (1899, ISSPG). 1
'Café Luxembourg' (1902, Whistler). 2
'Café Luxembourg' (1909, Howard Mansfield (1849-1938)). 3

1: London ISSPG 1899 (cat. no. 240).

2: Whistler to C. L. Freer, [23 March 1900/June 1902], GUW #13883.

3: Mansfield 1909[more] (cat. no. 425).

DESCRIPTION

Across the top half of the plate is the façade of a cafe with people sitting at tables on the pavement under an awning that bears the words 'BILLIAR[DS]' and 'CAFÉ R[illegible]'. At far left, beyond the awning, is a tall arched doorway, with a woman sitting outside and a figure standing to her left. At far right, at the edge of the pavement, stands a woman with a baby, and to her right, a gas lamp. Above the awning is the bottom of a row of windows, some shuttered, all with low iron-work window boxes. In the street in the foreground stand four horses, saddled, with a man holding one of them.

SITE

Possibly the Café Le Luxembourg at 58 Boulevard Saint-Michel, Paris, France. The presence of four saddled horses is a little surprising - but perhaps the riders had been riding in the park.