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Lot Essay
La brasserie was Jean Béraud's entry to the Salon of 1883, and was exhibited that same year at the Crystal Palace in Munich. In the Munich catalogue, the painting is said to belong to the journal L'Art, and it has previously been known solely from an illustration in the catalogue to the 1883 Salon (fig. 1). A drawing of the central figure and a portion of the table, presumably executed after the painting by the artist, was illustrated in L'Art in 1883 (Vol. XXXIII), and another, depicting the entire painting, is cited by Offenstadt as appearing on the London market. (P. Offenstadt, p. 56).
Jean Béraud, whose entire career was devoted to the realistic depiction of life in the French capital, did not shirk from painting the less than savory aspects of Parisian life. As in La sortie du bourgeois (see lot 177 in this sale), the artist is always true to life, painting beggars alongside the prosperous, the fashionable alongside the mundane. In a review of the Salon of 1883, one critic described La brasserie as a painting "in which Béraud represents in his own - far from unintelligent - way, the decadent Parisians of today." (E. About, "Salon de 1883", Le XIX Siècle, 18 May 1883, p. 1).
Béraud certainly frequented the same cafés and other, perhaps less reputable establishments as his friends Manet, Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. True to his vocation as the faithful reporter of all aspects of life in Paris, he did not limit his subject matter to just the fashionable boulevards and elegant soirées. Indeed, La brasserie certainly evokes the work of Toulouse-Lautrec in its exploring of the underbelly of Parisian life.
The present painting is a tour-de-force in regard to the artist's ability to evoke all the sights, smells and noises of a bustling Parisian café. The viewer can almost hear the shouting coming from in the figures in the back of the establishment, the scraping noise of the chair on the hard floor, the clink of a wine-glass on a hard marble table, and the chattering of the waitresses intertwining. The smell of cigar and pipe smoke is thick in the air, hanging visibly around the heads of the smokers. All is executed in the most tightly controlled palette of black, brown and white, with accents of a rich dark red. There is no softening of the colors, just as there is no glossing over the subject of the scene.
fig. 1 Engraving of La brasserie
Jean Béraud, whose entire career was devoted to the realistic depiction of life in the French capital, did not shirk from painting the less than savory aspects of Parisian life. As in La sortie du bourgeois (see lot 177 in this sale), the artist is always true to life, painting beggars alongside the prosperous, the fashionable alongside the mundane. In a review of the Salon of 1883, one critic described La brasserie as a painting "in which Béraud represents in his own - far from unintelligent - way, the decadent Parisians of today." (E. About, "Salon de 1883", Le XIX Siècle, 18 May 1883, p. 1).
Béraud certainly frequented the same cafés and other, perhaps less reputable establishments as his friends Manet, Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. True to his vocation as the faithful reporter of all aspects of life in Paris, he did not limit his subject matter to just the fashionable boulevards and elegant soirées. Indeed, La brasserie certainly evokes the work of Toulouse-Lautrec in its exploring of the underbelly of Parisian life.
The present painting is a tour-de-force in regard to the artist's ability to evoke all the sights, smells and noises of a bustling Parisian café. The viewer can almost hear the shouting coming from in the figures in the back of the establishment, the scraping noise of the chair on the hard floor, the clink of a wine-glass on a hard marble table, and the chattering of the waitresses intertwining. The smell of cigar and pipe smoke is thick in the air, hanging visibly around the heads of the smokers. All is executed in the most tightly controlled palette of black, brown and white, with accents of a rich dark red. There is no softening of the colors, just as there is no glossing over the subject of the scene.
fig. 1 Engraving of La brasserie