COFFEE IN RELATION TO THE FINE ARTS Page 2

The introduction of the coffee house into Europe was memorialized by Franz Schams, the genre painter, pupil of the Vienna Academy, in a beautiful picture entitled "The First Coffee House in Vienna, 1684," owned by the Austrian Art Society. A lithographic reproduction was executed by the artist and printed by Joseph Stoufs in Vienna. There are several specimens in the United States; and the illustration printed on page 48 has been made from one of these in the possession of the author.

The picture shows the interior of the Blue Bottle, where Kolschitzky opened the first coffee house in Vienna. The hero-proprietor stands in the foreground pouring a cup of the beverage from an oriental coffee pot, and another is suspended from the coffee-house sign that hangs over the fireplace. In the fire alcove a woman is pounding coffee in a mortar. Men and women in the costumes of the period are being served coffee by a Vienna mädchen.

Madame Du Barry and Her Slave Boy Zamore—Painting by Decreuse

The painters Marilhat, Descamps, and de Tournemine have pictured café scenes; the first in his "Café sur une route de Syrie", which was shown at the Salon of 1844; the second in his "Café Turc", which figured at the Exposition of 1855; and the third in his "Café en Asia Mineure", which received honors at the Salon of 1859, and attracted attention at the Universal Exposition of 1867.

A decorative panel designed for the buffet at the Paris Opera House by S. Mazerolles was shown at the Exposition of 1878. A French artist, Jacquand, has painted two charming compositions; one representing the reading room, and the other the interior, of a café.

Many German artists have shown coffee manners and customs in pictures that are now hanging in well known European galleries. Among others, mention should be made of C. Schmidt's "The Sweets Shop of Josty in Berlin", 1845; Milde's "Pastor Rautenberg and His Family at the Coffee Table", 1833; and his "Manager Classen and His Family at the Afternoon Coffee Table", 1840; Adolph Menzel's "Parisian Boulevard Café", 1870; Hugo Meith's "Saturday Afternoon at the Coffee Table"; John Philipp's "Old Woman with Coffee Cup"; Friedrich Walle's "Afternoon Coffee in the Court Gardens at Munich"; Paul Meyerheim's "Oriental Coffee House"; and Peter Philippi's (Dusseldorf) "Kaffeebesuch."

At the Exposition des Beaux Arts, Salon of 1881, there was shown P.A. Ruffio's picture, "Le café vient au secours de la Muse" (Coffee comes to the aid of the Muse), in which the graceful form of an oriental ewer appears.

The "Coffee House at Cairo," a canvas by Jean Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) that hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, has been much admired. It shows the interior of a typical oriental coffee house with two men near a furnace at the left preparing the beverage; a man seated on a wicker basket about to smoke a hooka; a dervish dancing; and several persons seated against the wall in the background.

COFFEE HOUSE AT CAIRO—PAINTING BY GÉRÔME IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM, NEW YORK

The New York Historical Society acquired in 1907 from Miss Margaret A. Ingram an oil painting of the "Tontine Coffee House." It was painted in Philadelphia by Francis Guy, and was sold at a raffle, after having been admired by President John Adams. It shows lower Wall Street in 1796–1800, with the Tontine coffee house on the northwest corner of Wall and Water Streets, where its more famous predecessor, the Merchants coffee house, was located before it moved to quarters diagonally opposite.

Charles P. Gruppe's (b. 1860) painting showing General "Washington's Official Welcome to New York by City and State Officials at the Merchants Coffee House," April 23, 1789, just one week before his inauguration as first president of the United States, is a colorful canvas that has been much praised for its atmosphere and historical associations. It is the property of the author.

The art museums and libraries of every country contain many beautiful water-colors, engravings, prints, drawings, and lithographs, whose creators found inspiration in coffee. Space permits the mention of only a few.

T.H. Shepherd has preserved for us Button's, afterward the Caledonien coffee house, Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, in a water-color drawing of 1857; Tom's coffee house, 17 Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, 1857; Slaughter's coffee house in St. Martin's Lane, 1841; also, in 1857, the Lion's Head at Button's, put up by Addison and now the property of the Duke of Bedford at Woburn.

Hogarth figures in the Sam Ireland collection with several original drawings of frequenters of Button's in 1730.