Paul VERLAINE asleep at the Café du Globe, in 1887, by Ferdinand BAC.

Ferdinand BAC (1859.1952)

Original signed drawing – Portrait of Paul Verlaine.

Charcoal on paper. 1887.

Size: 27 x 21 cm.

Signed in the lower left margin: " F. Bac – eyewitness"

In the lower right margin, Bac titles and captions his sketch:

"Paul Verlaine dozing at the Café du Globe on Avenue de l'Observatoire with Henri d'Argis de Guillerville. 1887"

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The physician and writer Henri d'Argis de Guillerville (1864-1896) became friends with Paul Verlaine. In his Journal, Ferdinand Bac describes him as "a mutual friend from the Latin Quarter in 1880 […] a strange bohemian […] morphine addict, failed genius, typist, poet, novelist, physician, organist, living with Moréas and Verlaine." D'Argis self-published his first novel, Sodome, with a preface by Verlaine.

Verlaine depicts him at his side in his drawing Une soirée chez Paul Verlaine (published in La Plume in February 1896) and dedicates a sonnet to him, initially published in Le Chat noir in August 1889, then included in his collection Dédicaces in 1890.