À l'orgue

The present painting is a reduction, of about a third of the size, of the monumental work by the same title currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met version was exhibited by the artist in the Salon of 1885, and this composition ranks among the artist’s most important and well-known works. Set in the choir loft of the church of Saint-François-Xavier in Paris, the figures depicted are the artist’s own circle of friends and family. Included are the artist’s wife, seated in a brown dress and not wearing a hat, her sisters, one seated and one singing and both wearing fashionable matching hats, and the artist’s brother-in-law, the composer Ernest Chausson, who is playing the organ. A self portrait of the artist, staring out of the picture, is also included at left. When the larger version was exhibited in the Salon, one critic remarked, 'spectators … spoke low before it, as if waiting for … the voice of the singer to be heard.'