Café table with absinth

Van Gogh painted this still life of a café table with an absinthe glass and carafe during his Paris period, most likely in 1887, and it belongs to a group of modest café subjects he treated alongside the figure studies and flower paintings of that time. Absinthe was the quintessential drink of Parisian bohemia, and its association with artistic inspiration and social dissolution was well established — Degas had painted L'Absinthe in 1876. Van Gogh treated the subject without moralising, observing the pale green glass and its reflection on the marble café table as an exercise in the representation of transparency and cool, diffuse light.

The pale green of the absinthe glass is rendered with transparent washes of colour, contrasting with the opaque white marble table. Short, varied brushstrokes describe the tabletop's hard surface. The background is kept thin and atmospheric, focusing attention on the precise observation of the glass and carafe.