Why Victorian critics branded this masterpiece a disgusting blow to public morality

Art · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Edgar Degas painted a quiet, lonely scene in a Parisian café, but when it crossed the English Channel in 1893, it ignited a firestorm. Critics saw not art, but a moral catastrophe. They labeled the subjects degraded and used the painting as a cautionary tale against the perceived decadence of France.

Painted between 1875 and 1876, the work now known as L'Absinthe originally bore the title Dans un Café. It depicts two figures, the actress Ellen Andrée and the painter Marcellin Desboutin, sitting together at the Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes in Paris. The woman, dressed in fashionable attire, stares vacantly downward, while the man beside her gazes off the canvas. Despite the mundane reality of the setting, the painting became a lightning rod for controversy, particularly in Victorian England.

When the painting appeared at the Grafton Gallery in London in 1893, it was met with intense derision. Critics like Sir William Blake Richmond and Walter Crane viewed the work as an affront to morality, interpreting the subjects' lethargic appearance as a warning against the dangers of absinthe and the influence of French culture. George Moore, a prominent critic, initially disparaged the woman in the painting with harsh moral judgment, though he later retracted his stance in his book Modern Painting, arguing that the work was purely artistic and lacked any sociological or moral agenda.

The painting's journey through the art market reflects this shifting reception. It was first purchased in 1876 by Captain Henry Hill, a collector from Brighton, before passing through the hands of dealer Alexander Reid and his client Arthur Kay in 1892. Kay, feeling ambivalent about the work's reputation, sold it to a Paris dealer in 1893. Today, the painting resides in the Musée d'Orsay, serving as a testament to the tension between the artist's intent and the moral anxieties of the era. It remains a prime example of the deep suspicion with which Victorian society regarded Continental art, reflecting a broader fear that the perceived decadence of Europe might infiltrate the British Isles.

General information, not professional advice. Spotted an error? Flag the card or see corrections and complaints.

Intellect Plus is a visual educational discovery platform for exploring fascinating facts and ideas. Brain Food, Not Brain Rot. What is Intellect Plus?

Related

• Why did critics call Edgar Degas’ most famous sculpture the flower of precocious depravity?
• Why late Victorian rebels insisted that art should be useless and beautiful
• Why a massive painting of a boring funeral shocked the 19th-century art world
• Critics once mocked styles that later became badges of honor
• How a customs clerk and 'wild beasts' shattered Western art
• Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine is a masterclass in symbolic, living geometry.
• Can a biologist's obsession with symmetry redefine the boundaries between science and art?
• Italy's biggest lake hides a fault line and a drowned Roman-era town
• The smiling face of a Yugoslav revolutionary was actually a staged wartime art piece
• Why this Japanese National Treasure was once hidden in a humble curio shop
• A single Soviet photograph became a global symbol of war, despite its uncertain origins.
• Landscape design is the art of balancing nature and culture within a single space.

More in Visual arts · More in Art · Latest · A–Z · All topics