Edgar Degas | Women on a café terrace in the evening, 1877

Women in a Café or Women on a Café Terrace is a work by the French painter Edgar Degas, made in 1877 and preserved in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

In this pastel, Degas's curious gaze catches four women sitting on the terrace of a Parisian café talking (in the background there is a Parisian cityscape dotted with night lights).

Edgar Degas loved the evening hour in Montmartre.

As strong sunlight hurt his eyes he enjoyed wandering round Paris at night, picking up impressions, fixing indelibly on the plate of his memory certain scenes which he later developed with remarkable distinction in his studio.

His method here was to start with the indications of the main forms of his picture painted on a metal plate. From this he took an impression on paper, building up the color and sense of detail in strokes of pastel.

This daring and angular composition with the pillars of the cafè sharplv cutting the scene suggests the Impressionist search for sudden, fresh views of daily life.

No one before Degas would have interrupted a figure with a vertical pillar stretching the entire height of the picture.

No one else would have played so subtle a rhythm of curves, in the chairs, in the costumes, against these severe forms, or have studied the light of the interior as contrasted to the blurred, streaked night scene behind.

As usual the poses and gestures are caught with a sharp eye; observe the woman with her fingernail held against her teeth in the center and the woman at the right leaning back and out of the frame.

The color, with its muted harmonies and sudden sharp touches, helps to convey the evening mood.

In addition Degas stressed the character of the moment; seldom sympathetic, except in portraits of his own class, he portrayed these women of the demi-monde as somewhat ridiculous in their finery, managing to suggest a faintly sinister quality about the entire scene.

The work, now on display at the Musée d'Orsay, was presented to the public in 1877, on the occasion of the third exhibition of the Impressionists.

Here it received glowing praise from the critic Georges Riviere, who wrote the following review in the newspaper L'Impressionniste. Journal d'art:

"So here, some women at the door of a café in the evening. One with her nails between her teeth [...] another stretches her gloved hand across the table. In the background, people gradually disperse along the boulevard. It is again a page of extraordinary history".

Femmes à la terrasse d'un café le soir è un'opera del pittore francese Edgar Degas, realizzata nel 1877 e conservata al Musée d'Orsay di Parigi.

In questo pastello, lo sguardo curioso di Degas coglie quattro donne sedute sulla terrazza di un caffè parigino a parlare (sullo sfondo c'è un paesaggio urbano parigino punteggiato di luci notturne).