Artwork

La Place des Martyrs et La Taverne du Bagne (The Place des Martyrs and the Jailhouse Tavern)

La Place des Martyrs et La Taverne du Bagne (The Place des Martyrs and the Jailhouse Tavern) is an ink print by the Impressionist artist Félix-Hilaire Buhot. It dates from 1885 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.

Inscription: Inscribed:lower right below plate mark in pen and black ink: Premier Etat Felix Buhot; lower right in plate: FELIX BUHOT_Nov._1885; lower right in plate (vertically): O Forçats!; across bottom in plate: Pendant qu'ils sont la-bas rivés a des labeurs / Eternels par la griffe implacable des chaines / Ayant sur eux la Chiourme au dedans des gehennes / Et crachant en jurons immondes leurs rancoeurs / O Forçats! Tout le Bien que leur misère inspire / C'est de battre la caisse avec ces désepoirs / Ici dans un boulet le Passant trouve a rire / Et la chaine en gros sous tinte sur les comptoirs

About this work

Overview

Félix‑Hilaire Buhot’s 1885 print, titled La Place des Martyrs et La Taverne du Bagne, depicts a bustling urban street anchored by a large prison structure. The composition is crowded with pedestrians, shop signs and a tavern sign, all rendered in a compact, atmospheric setting that conveys the everyday life of a working‑class quarter.

Subject & Meaning

The scene centers on a public square named Place des Martyrs, juxtaposed with the nearby Taverne du Bagne, a tavern whose name references the adjacent jail. By placing the penitentiary and the drinking establishment together, Buhot hints at the social tensions and marginality of the neighborhood, suggesting a world where confinement and leisure coexist.

Technique & Style

Executed in blue‑black on brown laid paper, the work combines etching, aquatint, lift‑ground aquatint and drypoint. Buhot’s fine, incisive lines define the figures and architecture, while the aquatint washes create muted tonal areas that deepen the sense of shadow and grit. The drypoint adds subtle burr‑rich edges that enhance texture in the crowded foreground.

History & Provenance

Created in 1885, the print forms part of Buhot’s series of urban studies that documented Parisian life in the late nineteenth century. It entered the collection of the Musée d’Orsay in the early twentieth century, where it has been cited in exhibitions on French printmaking and the social realism of the period.