Dornac
1880s
Portrait of Paul Verlaine sitting in Café Procopo

Albumen print
5 x 7 in (12.7 x 17.8 cm)
 
Swann Galleries - New York
Courtesy of Swann Galleries (Auction, Feb 7, 2008, #2135, Lot 28)
 
With Paul Verlaine's name and notations, in pencil, on mount verso, in an unknown hand.
 
From Librairie Claude Vrain, Paris; to the present owner in 2002. Verlaine, a companion of the poet Arthur Rimbaud, was a devoted drinker of Absinthe, a milky hallucinogenic spirit that appears to be on the table before him. Collectors of turn-of-the-century glassware sometimes refer to the egg glass on the table as "Verlaine" glass, because it is seen in this well known Dornac photograph.
 
LL/27094