Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00011447Café in Constantinople
About the Artwork
This precise and carefully finished work reflects an unusual technique. Building up the entire area with ink and graphite over white chalk, Bida used a stylus to scratch a comprehensive network of tiny lines, providing highlights and picking out details. For his Orientalist subjects, Bida traveled repeatedly to the Near East-the first time in 1843 when he went to Constantinople and Syria from Venice. Although he closely observed the costumes and people encountered overseas, the decorative arrangements and symmetrical space in this draw-ing exemplify the theatrical aspects of Bida's art.
Inscriptions
signed, lower right, in black ink and stylus: Alex Bida
Provenance
(Fischer-Kiener Galerie, Paris 1978)
Exhibition history
French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26-October 28, 2001); Dahesh Museum of Art (February 19-May 18, 2002).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Alexandre Bida (French, 1823–1895)
- Date
- 1847
- Medium
- brush and black and gray ink, graphite, and stylus on white wove paper coated with a white ground
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 40.7 x 29.2 cm (16 x 11 1/2 in.); Image: 38.2 x 25.9 cm (15 1/16 x 10 3/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Bequest of Muriel Butkin
- Accession no.
- 2008.381
More by Alexandre Bida in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00011447
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