Outside a Café
About this artwork
This painting is uncharacteristic of Maris, both in subject and in the style it has been painted. The scene shows three men wearing turbans and two younger boys outside a café, where the blazing sunshine has created strong areas of light and shade. The three men hold long smoking pipes (‘hookahs’ in Arabic), and rest on a crumbling wall. It was almost certainly made during the years he spent in Paris, where the art dealers Goupil et Cie. commissioned Maris to copy works by some of their most prominent artists, such as Jean-Léon Gérôme and Hippolyte Bellangé. This painting’s orientalist theme and precise detail show the influence of Gérôme, but it might have been copied from a photograph. It has a sharpness and precision that is not normally associated with Maris’s style of painting.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Jacob Maris (1837 - 1899) Dutch
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title:Outside a Café
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date created:About 1868
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materials:Paint on paper, laid down on mahogany panel
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measurements:28.00 x 21.50 cm; Framed: 47.00 x 53.30 x 11.40 cm
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object type:
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credit line:Bequest of Hugh A. Laird 1911
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accession number:NG 1052
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gallery:
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artwork photographed by:Antonia Reeve
Jacob Maris
Jacob Maris
Born in The Hague, Maris trained in Antwerp and Paris, where he was greatly influenced by the art of the Barbizon painters. Much of his early work consisted of domestic scenes of figures. When Jacob returned to his native town in the summer of 1871, he had turned his back on figurative painting to...