About this artwork
Eugène Atget systematically photographed traditional establishments and vernacular settings in Paris—fundamental aspects of the city under threat from new construction and industrialization. Successful before World War I as a purveyor of “Old Paris” to libraries and artists, in his final years (and posthumously) he became a cult favorite of two specific and influential sets—European Surrealists and American documentarians. Atget included this early image of a cabaret in a 1913 album of 60 images called Signs and Old Shops in Paris. He focused here equally on the emblem of “the armed man”—a title (and a tavern) dating to the medieval crusades, rendered in word and image to assure its familiarity to a partially illiterate clientele—and on the maitre d’, who gazes back through a glass window that also reflects, like a ghost, the likeness of the photographer himself.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Photography and Media
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Artist
- Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget
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Title
- Cabaret de l'Homme Armé, Rue des Blancs-Manteaux
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Place
- France (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- Made 1900
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Medium
- Albumen print
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Dimensions
- Image/paper: 22.1 × 17.4 cm (8 3/4 × 6 7/8 in.)
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Credit Line
- Purchased with funds provided by Anstiss and Ronald Krueck in honor of Matthew S. Witkovsky
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Reference Number
- 2014.659
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IIIF Manifest
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/223184/manifest.json