Café in Constantinople (1847): Art, History and Details

Café in Constantinople (1847) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Alexandre Bida (French, 1823–1895).

The work and its context

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

This precise and carefully finished work reflects an unusual technique. Building up the entire area with ink and graphite over white chalk, Bida used a stylus to scratch a comprehensive network of tiny lines, providing highlights and picking out details. For his Orientalist subjects, Bida traveled repeatedly to the Near East-the first time in 1843 when he went to Constantinople and Syria from Venice. Although he closely observed the costumes and people encountered overseas, the decorative arrangements and symmetrical space in this draw-ing exemplify the theatrical aspects of Bida's art.

Object facts

• Title: Café in Constantinople
• Date: 1847
• Creator attribution: Alexandre Bida (French, 1823–1895)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: brush and black and gray ink, graphite, and stylus on white wove paper coated with a white ground
• Dimensions: Sheet: 40.7 x 29.2 cm (16 x 11 1/2 in.); Image: 38.2 x 25.9 cm (15 1/16 x 10 3/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2008.381

Collection credit

Bequest of Muriel Butkin

Further reading listed by the museum

• Foster, Carter E., Sylvain Bellenger, and Patrick Shaw Cable. French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001.

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.