LOT DETAILS

Materials:

oil on canvas

Measurements:

42.52 in. (108.00 cm.) (height) by 42.52 in. (108.00 cm.) (width)

Markings:

signed 'J.F. RAFFAËLLI' (lower right)

Exhibited:

Paris, 35 boulevard de Capucines, 6me Exposition de peinture [Sixth Impressionist Group Exhibition], April-May 1881, p. 9, no. 91 (titled Les Déclassés). Paris, avenue de l'Opera, Exposition des oeuvres de Jean-François Raffaëlli, March-April 1884, p. 13, no. 81. Paris, Palais de l'Industrie, Salon, 1889, no. 2231. Chicago, World Columbian Exposition, May-October 1893, p. 63, no. 2966. Art Institute of Chicago, Jean-François Raffaëlli, 1895, no. 7. Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Raffaëlli, June 1909, no. 2. Sarasota, Ringling Museum of Art, The Palmer Family Collection, 1963, no. 32 (illustrated, pl. 16). Washington, D.C., The National Gallery of Art, The New Painting: Impressionism 1874-1886, January-April 1986, pp. 339 and 368, no. 112 (illustrated in color).

Literature:

"Beaux-Arts: Sixième exposition des artistes 'indépendants,'" in Le petit parisien, 8 April 1881. A. Wolff, Le Figaro, Paris, 10 April 1881. H. Trianon, Le constitutionnel, 24 April 1881. J.-K. Huysmans, "L'exposition des indépendants en 1881," in L'art moderne, Paris, 1883, pp. 245-246. G. Doncieux, ed., "La peinture en 1884," in Controverse et le contemporain, revue mensuelle, May 1884, vol. 1, p. 502. F. Fénéon, "Le salon," in La revue indépendante, June 1889, vol. 11, p. 366. J.-F. Raffaëlli, "Culte de soi," Manuscripts and Documents of Jean-François Raffaëlli, The Getty Research Institute, 1893, n.p., no. 930076. A. Alexandre, Jean-François Raffaëlli: peintre, graveur et sculpteur, Paris, 1909. G. Coquiot, Gazette des beaux-arts, 1911, vol. 5, p. 137. G. Lecomte, Raffaëlli, Paris, 1927, pl. 7 (illustrated). J.-K. Huysmans, Oeuvres complètes, Paris, 1928-1929, vol. VI, p. 269. Apollo, vol. LXXVII, April 1963, p. 339 (illustrated). B.S. Fields, Jean-François Raffaëlli (1850-1924): The Naturalist Artist, Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, New York, 1979, pp. 180-185 and 325, no. 46 (illustrated, p. 435). R. Thomson, "The Drinkers of Daumier, Raffaëlli, and Toulouse-Lautrec: Preliminary Observations on a Motif," in Oxford Art Journal, April 1979, vol. 2, pp. 29-33. J. Isaacson, The Crisis of Impressionism, 1878-1882, Ann Arbor, 1980, p. 171, no. 45. R. Rosenblum and H.W. Janson, 19th-Century Art, New York, 1984, pp. 367-370, 410, fig. 292 (illustrated, p. 370). W.N. Arnold, Vincent van Gogh: Chemicals, Crises, and Creativity, Boston, 1992, p. 109. J. Adams, Hideous Absinthe: a History of the Devil in a Bottle, Madison, 2004, p. 124. M. Young, "Heroic Indolence: Realism and the Politics of Time in Raffaëlli's Absinthe Drinkers," in Art Bulletin, June 2008, vol. XC, no. 2, pp. 235-259 (illustrated in color). L. Jansen, H. Luijten and N. Bakker, ed., Vincent van Gogh: The Letters, The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition, London, 2009, vol. 4, p. 448 (illustrated in color).

Provenance:

Ernest Blum, Paris. Mr. and Mrs. Potter Palmer, Chicago (by 1893). Potter Palmer, Jr., Chicago (by descent from the above). Anon. sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 11 May 1977, lot 7. Acquired at the above sale by the late owners.