Eliseo Meifrén y Roig, Plaza de Paris, 1887

Eliseo Meifrén y Roig, Plaza de Paris
oil on canvas, 1887
Museo Nacional del Prado
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Le magnifique rendu de l'eau dans la carafe, du vin dans les verres et le verre lui-même! (Lucie Astorgue)

The marble-top table! The rolled newspaper on the table! You don't see those around any more! (Gev Sweeney)

On s'y croirait! Superbe! (Marion Evans)

The place is a café in Place de Clichy. It can be identified by the base of the column that appears in the background, part of the monument to Maréchal de Moncey, Amédée Doublemard sculptor. The composition shows a modern perspective: layout and cut angled pedestal in the foreground, Degas mode, as if the artist introduced the viewer into the scene. That aspect of the frame casual appearance is also visible in the cut off near the bottom edge of the canvas the newspaper and the foot of one of the glasses of liquor. However, the banks break with this idea and, along with the roof, framing a neat view of the city in the calm of a spring noon. The compact definition of planes and volumes, highlighted by a light crisp outlining the contours of the objects, is typical of the early days of painter's activity, which solves the glass shines with a touch dense, distant yet to his own impressionist touch maturity. As for the woman sitting on the bank, she is somewhat reminiscent of the artist's wife, María Dolores Pajarín y Valls (http://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/galeria-on-line/galeria-on-line/obra/plaza-de-paris/)


(Eliseo Meifrén y Roig)