User:Viriditas/Mother Anthony's Tavern

Mother Anthony’s Tavern (Le cabaret de la Mère Antony à Bourron-Marlotte), also known as At the Inn of Mother Anthony, is an 1866 oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The work is currently in the collection of the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. It is done in the naturalist style and is the first notable work of Renoir's career. He later painted Diana and Lise with a Parasol, the first of his works which came to reflect the impressionist style.

Background
The village of Marlotte was located on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau. The painters of the Barbizon school loved the area for painting outdoors. Built in 1850, the Cabaret de la mère Anthony inn was located in the hamlet of Marlotte in Bourron-Marlotte at number 35 bis rue Murger. It was demolished around 1890. The inn became popular with avant-garde painters. Writers, other artists and art critics also frequented the place. Alphonse Daudet, Loÿs Delteil, Henri Murger, Alfred Sisley, Ernest Reyer (who composed his opera Salammbô), and the singer Rose Caron were some of the best-known clients besides Renoir. Henri Murger's novel Le Sabot Rouge described the inn as an important art center and gave it the name L'Auberge du Sabot Rouge. In the book, the village was fictionalized as Saint-Clair and the owners as Eustache and Héloïse Pampeau. Even the dog Toto, a trained circus dog, appears in the novel.

Description
The painting shows a scene at the inn run by the Anthony couple.

Renoir's painting depicts several people, sitting after a meal around a table that is being cleared away. The canvas shows six figures:


 * Alfred Sisley seated on the right, wearing a light colored hat.
 * Mère Anthony, to Sisley's left, between the two seated men, with their backs to the viewer.
 * The other man sitting, listening to Sisley, has never been identified with certainty.
 * Architect Jules Le Coeur, standing up, a man who had given up his successful career as a painter
 * Nana, the young maid of the inn, is seen cleaning the table.
 * Toto, the dog in front of the table.