[VERLAINE] DORNAC, Paul Cardon, dit (1858-1941)

[VERLAINE] DORNAC, Paul Cardon, dit (1858-1941)

Period albumen print on thick cardboard
[Paris, 22 May 1892], 122 x 177 mm
Museum glass 92, beige mount, walnut frame (268 x 323 mm)

The iconic portrait of Verlaine, slumped on a bench seat at the Café François 1er, his gaze glassy, in front of a large glass of absinthe

This photograph immortalizes Verlaine in one of the cafés of the boulevard Saint-Michel, where he was a regular and received writers, friends, and curious onlookers. “The Café François Ier on the boulevard Saint-Michel is the meeting place of poets. When Verlaine is not to be found there absorbed before his absinthe or his rum and water, one at least has the good fortune of seeing Jean Moréas, proud as the swordsman he describes in his verses” (W.G.C. Bijvanck, Un Hollandais à Paris en 1891, cited by B. Noël, “Profils méconnus de Paul Verlaine,” Histoires littéraires n° 59-60).

In the late 1880s, Dornac undertook a series of portraits of the celebrities of his time entitled Nos contemporains chez eux (Our Contemporaries at Home). The shot of Verlaine at the Café François Ier was taken on 28 May 1892. The photographer took three photographs of the poet seated at a table in the establishment. This shot is closely related to another one showing the poet at a different spot on the same bench seat, with a glass of wine in front of him instead of a glass of absinthe. Such staging is reminiscent of Verlaine’s peers, Baudelaire foremost among them. Alcohol and spleen (melancholy) are recurring motifs in both their respective bodies of work. It is therefore no surprise that Verlaine plays on this, as though echoing his own creative work and the ethos he had forged for himself.