At the Club Jean Béraud

Jean Béraud made his name as a painter of modern urban life and attractive Parisian women. He also took an interest in the life of high society, thus private establishments reserved for the upper class, modelled on exclusive English gentlemen’s clubs, provided the subject matter for several of his works, the present painting being perhaps the first on this theme. The men depicted in the painting, which was shown at the 1904 Salon of the Société nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, are undisguisedly bored: while two of them smoke and converse by the fire, some of the gentlemen sprawling in the armchairs have already dozed off.
While Béraud has depicted the scene with conspicuous irony, the painting is also remarkable for its compositional approach. The artist employed a reduced palette of just a few warm, deep colours. There is no central figure, and the gentlemen are positioned in such a way that their faces are either partly or entirely hidden. According to critics, the setting may have been the Cercle de l’Union artistique, also known as the Cercle de l’Épatant. This elite club, founded in 1860, supported cultural endeavours and regularly organised exhibitions. Although works by Béraud were featured in their shows, he may have intended this painting as a kind of mockery of the influential members of this artistic coterie.

Anna Zsófia Kovács