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12. Emile Benassit (1839-1902) L’Absinthe!
Lithograph, 1861, 282 x 218 mm.,
Béraldi 6. A very fine impression on wove paper with large margins; the right edge of the sheet slightly browned. Absinthe is artistically familiar from Impressionist paintings showing some poor wretch at a café table bent over a small glass of the “green fairy.” It was viewed then, by its users, as the ideal combination of alcohol and narcotic, containing, among its constituents, an extract of the herb wormwood (Artemesia absinthium), considered, an addictive and hallucinatory drug. Benassit takes a seriously negative view of the drink. In his image it is dispensed from a death’s head fountain and its imbibers show evidence of madness, stupor and total inebriation, not to mention clearly portrayed suicidal efforts. The subject of numerous medical warnings and alerts, absinthe was banned in the United States for decades. You can now buy it, legally, from virtually any liquor dealer. The print was done for the journal Le Boulevart. This is an impression sur blanc, a deluxe printing apart from the magazine edition. |
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