A meeting of connoisseurs Assemblée des connoisseurs / [graphic] =

A scene in an artist's studio lit from an attic window (left). Four connoisseurs are grouped round a large canvas on an easel: an Apollo with a sheaf of arrows, head turned in profile to the left. The model is a tall black man in the pose of the Apollo but with very different features, the left hand holding the stick of a broom which supports the pose. A fifth connoisseur reaches up to alter the position of the model's head. The artist stands beside his canvas facing the invaders, the left hand, holding palette and brushes, rests on the canvas; he sucks his mahl-stick with a gloomy scowl. On the extreme right a cat sits in a cradle, behind which an alarmed little boy hides. The artist's wife, with an infant in her arms, faces the fire with her back to the visitors whose unwelcome intrusion is apparent. Behind is a bed with drawn curtains. Three casts from the antique decorate the bare room. The model's coat and hat lie on the ground (right). On the far left in the foreground a dog urinates against two canvases leaning against the wall