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The Drinkers

Painting of three male figures, two older men in top hats and a younger man with red hair, standing outdoors around a wooden table with a pitcher on it, drinking from glasses. A much smaller, childlike figure at left peers over the table and drinks from a white cup. The scene is rendered in winding paint strokes in shades of green and blue.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • Painting of three male figures, two older men in top hats and a younger man with red hair, standing outdoors around a wooden table with a pitcher on it, drinking from glasses. A much smaller, childlike figure at left peers over the table and drinks from a white cup. The scene is rendered in winding paint strokes in shades of green and blue.

Date:

1890

Artist:

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890)

About this artwork

During his time in the Asylum of Saint-Paul in Saint-Rémy, a small town near Arles, Vincent van Gogh made a number of copies of the work of artists he admired, which freed him from having to produce original compositions and allowed him to concentrate instead on interpretation. For this image, Van Gogh copied a wood engraving from Honoré Daumier’s Drinkers, a parody on the four ages of man. The exaggerated figure types capture Daumier’s characteristic humor and convey his sad message about the horrors of alcoholism. The greenish palette may well be an allusion to the notorious alcoholic drink absinthe.

Status

On View, Gallery 241

Department

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist

Vincent van Gogh

Title

The Drinkers

Place

Netherlands (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1890

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

59.4 × 73.4 cm (23 3/8 × 28 7/8 in.); Framed: 78.9 × 93.3 cm (31 1/16 × 36 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Joseph Winterbotham Collection

Reference Number

1953.178

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/79349/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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