At the Café
- Artist: Edouard Manet
- Date: 1878
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Museum: The National Gallery
- Collection record: The National Gallery website
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About this artwork
This is "At the Café" by Edouard Manet. Painted in 1878, this oil on canvas depicts a scene inside one of Paris's popular establishments in the late 19th century. These cafés offered drinks and entertainment to people from different social classes.
Manet originally cut this canvas into two separate works: "At the Café" and "Corner of a Café-Concert". You can see moments of visual continuity between them, like the angle of the table and the shadows of the glasses. They're currently on display together in Room 41.
In the painting, we have a pair of fashionably dressed patrons sitting at a marble tabletop. The man is modelled by the lithographer Henri Guérard, while the woman is based on the actor and model Ellen Andrée. Their relationship seems ambivalent - they're leaning against each other but also gazing out in different directions.
To their left, there's an unidentified young woman sitting in sharp profile, looking vacant. The background features a poster announcing a performance by the British Hanlon-Lees acrobatic group at the Folies-Bergère music hall. This is just one of many scenes of café society that Manet painted, giving us an impression of spontaneous urban life.
It's interesting to note that Manet started working on this painting in 1877 but later cut it into two and reworked each half separately. Despite some moments of continuity between the two works, he couldn't resolve his dissatisfactions with the composition, particularly the placement of the central table.
See it in person
At the Café hangs in The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
