Paul Gauguin
Charlotte Futterer's cremerie fed the artists of Montparnasse on credit and sometimes in exchange for work. Paul Gauguin met Alphonse Mucha at these tables.
Madame Charlotte's crémerie, 13 rue de la Grande-Chaumière
Still standing
Outside only
Someone else
The tiny dairy-restaurant run by Charlotte Futterer on the rue de la Grande-Chaumière, where broke artists ate on credit and sometimes settled the bill with a canvas — and where Paul Gauguin met Alphonse Mucha.
- 13 rue de la Grande-Chaumière, 75006 Paris
- Charlotte Futterer's crémerie, feeding Montparnasse artists on credit
The place, briefly
A crémerie sold milk, cheese and eggs and served cheap food at a few tables. Charlotte Futterer's, on the rue de la Grande-Chaumière opposite the drawing academy, fed the artists of the quarter for years, extended credit when they had nothing, and accepted work in place of money often enough that the walls filled with paintings.
Paul Gauguin ate here, and so did Alphonse Mucha, who was then an unknown Czech illustrator. They met at these tables, and after Gauguin's return from Tahiti the two shared a studio for a period — an unlikely pairing that produced one of the odder photographs in art history, of Gauguin sitting at a harmonium in Mucha's studio without his trousers.
The economics of the place are worth stating plainly. A great deal of what is now hanging in national museums was made by people who could not reliably buy lunch, and the institutions that kept them working were small businesses run by women like Charlotte Futterer, who are almost never named in the catalogues.
The crémerie is long gone. The street is still full of art schools.
Key facts
- Charlotte Futterer
- A crémerie — a dairy shop serving cheap meals
- On credit, and sometimes in paintings
- Paul Gauguin met Alphonse Mucha here
- The Académie de la Grande Chaumière
- Closed; the street remains
Timeline
Gauguin and Mucha eat at the crémerie and become acquainted.
After Tahiti, Gauguin shares a studio with Mucha for a period.
On the map
Questions before you go
Did artists really pay for meals with paintings?
At Madame Charlotte's crémerie, often enough that it is part of the place's history. Credit and barter were how a good deal of Montparnasse ate.
How did Gauguin know Alphonse Mucha?
They met at this crémerie and later shared a studio for a period after Gauguin returned from his first Tahitian voyage.
People who knew this place
Within walking distance
Académie de la Grande Chaumière
The Montparnasse drawing academy founded in 1904, where anyone could pay for a session with a model and no one asked for qualifications — the school that trained a substantial share of the École de Paris.
Visit the place
La Rotonde
The café every taxi driver delivered Americans to — the novel's driest Montparnasse joke, and before that the painters' living room, where the patron took drawings for drinks.
Visit the place103 boulevard du Montparnasse
Where Simone de Beauvoir was born in 1908 and grew up with her sister Hélène — in the middle of Montparnasse, the quarter she would spend most of her life within a few streets of.
Visit the place
Le Dôme
The noisy common room of Montparnasse and the setting of 'With Pascin at the Dôme' — the café for watching the show, not for working.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
Paris, one address at a time.
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.