Au Moulin de la Galette

Painted by Ramón Casas in 1892 in Paris, this work shows a woman seated alone in a Montmartre venue, with a glass of absinthe in front of her and a cigar in hand. At the time, cafés were a favourite subject of Parisian painting in the last years of the nineteenth century, and a woman drinking and smoking alone in one of them was an image with unmistakably provocative associations for viewers. The full-length figure, seen almost frontally, fills a foreground with little depth: the barely sketched background hints at the interior without describing it, a device that recalls Manet and his famous Bar at the Folies-Bergère. The model is usually identified as Madeleine de Boisguillaume, who also sat for Toulouse-Lautrec, which is why the picture is sometimes known as La Madeleine. Casas, a key figure of Catalan Modernism, combined a restrained palette with a direct gaze, turning a bar scene into a study of character and atmosphere.

Painter

Ramon Casas

Date

1892

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

117 × 90 cm

Museum

Museum of Montserrat, Monistrol de Montserrat

Movement

Art Nouveau

Genre

portrait

Depicts

sitting, chignon, saucer, table, chair, blouse, cigar, Madeleine de Boisguillaume

Share:FacebookWhatsApp