By the table is a group portrait as much as a testimony to the literary history of the 19th century, and the parnassus poetry group in particular. A group of men are gathered around the far end of a table after a meal. Three are standing, from left to right: elzéar bonnier, emile blémont and jean aicard. Five are seated: paul verlaine and arthur rimbaud, léon valade, ernest d'hervilly and camille pelletan. They are all dressed in black except one, camille pelletan, who is not a poet like the others but a politician. The central place is occupied by emile blémont, who bought the painting and gave it to the louvre in 1910. At least two figures are missing: charles baudelaire, to whom the painting was initially to have been a tribute, who died in 1867 and albert mérat who did not want to be painted in the company of the diabolic poets verlaine and rimbaud and was reputedly replaced by a bunch of flowers. Date: 1872.
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