At the Café (1874): Art, History and Details

At the Café (1874) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Édouard Manet (French, 1832–1883).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This print by Édouard Manet depicts the Café Guerbois, a gathering place for Impressionist artists in 19th-century Paris. Although best known for his paintings, the artist was an avid printmaker throughout his entire career. Here, he experimented with gillotage—a new technique at the time—to suggest the quick, sketchy lines of drawing, making the image appear as if it had been created quickly and spontaneously.

Object facts

• Title: At the Café
• Date: 1874
• Creator attribution: Édouard Manet (French, 1832–1883)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: gillotage
• Dimensions: Image: 26.3 x 33.4 cm (10 3/8 x 13 1/8 in.); Sheet: 26.9 x 36 cm (10 9/16 x 14 3/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Lithograph
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2019.57

A detail from the museum

This image appeared in the Belgian journal L’Europe, which was censored by Parisian police. This impression is the only one known to have been saved before the journal was destroyed.

Collection credit

Gift of the Print Club of Cleveland in honor of its 100th anniversary

Further reading listed by the museum

• Guérin, Marcel. L’Oeuvre de Manet. Paris: Floury, 1944.
• Harris, Jean C. Edouard Manet: Graphic Works; A Definitive Catalogue Raisonné. New York: Collectors Editions, 1970.
• Fisher, Jay McKean. The Prints of Edouard Manet. Washington, D.C.: The Foundation, 1985.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.