L'Absinthe

Edgar Degas painted this scene of café life between 1875 and 1876, showing two figures at the Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes in Paris. A woman stares vacantly, a glass of absinthe before her. A man beside her gazes elsewhere, a pipe in hand. They share a table but seem utterly disconnected. The composition puts viewers at an adjacent table, as if we've just looked up and noticed them.

The models were actress Ellen Andrée and artist Marcellin Desboutin, neither of whom actually drank absinthe. The painting's bleak mood cast such a shadow on their reputations that Degas had to publicly clarify they weren't alcoholics. Andrée later confirmed she barely touched the stuff and lived a long, happy life.

Critics savaged the painting at its first showing in 1876, calling it ugly and disgusting. When exhibited in London in 1893 under the title "L'Absinthe," it sparked a diplomatic incident. English critics saw it as proof of French moral decay. Count Isaac de Camondo eventually bequeathed it to the Louvre in 1911, and it transferred to the Musée d'Orsay in 1986.