Lot Essay
This work will be included in the Fantin-Latour catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels being prepared by Galerie Brame & Lorenceau. This work is a preparatory work for one of Fantin-Latour's greatest compositions, Le coin de table, his hommage to the artistic circle of his time. In the centre we see a portrait of Baudelaire, whom the meal honours, and around him the great painters, writers and thinkers of the day. The finished work is housed at the Musée d'Orsay, and is one of the iconic depictions of fin de siècle Paris, and the intellectual gatherings that took place there.