Edouard Manet's The Absinthe Drinker: The Evolution of an Etched Plate and Prints

Variations in technique, inking, and support amongst lifetime and posthumous impressions of Edouard Manet's etching The Absinthe Drinker exemplify the role of printing matrices as sites of artistic mediation. These variations demonstrate the artist's refinement of his own printmaking practice, his collaboration with contemporary artists, printers, and publishers, and the reworkings of posthumous printers and publishers. Manet's experimentation with different aspects of printmaking and the resultant aesthetic qualities of the printed image is apparent upon close examination of unpublished proofs of the first and second states of The Absinthe Drinker. Second-state impressions printed on “Hudelist” paper show the hand of professional printer Auguste Délâtre, who printed the image for the portfolio Huit gravures à l'eau forte par Manet, published by Alfred Cadart in 1862. Some third-state impressions demonstrate the results of Manet's reworking of the plate around 1867 and the printing preferences of Alfred Porcabeuf, who published an edition of the print in 1906-10, before cancelling the plate. Third-state impressions with subtle cancellation marks are proof of at least one subsequent twentieth-century printing. The evolution and afterlife of the plate and impressions of The Absinthe Drinker attest to artistic exchange not only within the printmaking world but also beyond it. Paintings by Diego Velázquez and a poem by Charles Baudelaire likely influenced Manet, who himself made multiple paintings and drawings of the figure. Manet's etching plate and prints of the subject, therefore, both participate in and are evidence of artistic encounters and exchanges across media.