Painted in 1875–76, the work portrays a woman and man[1] sitting side-by-side, drinking a glass of absinthe.

[5][6] The painting was shown again at the Grafton Gallery in England in 1893, this time entitled L'Absinthe, where it sparked even greater controversy.

[3] The people and the absinthe represented in the painting were considered by English critics to be shockingly degraded and uncouth.

Many English critics viewed the picture as a warning lesson against absinthe, and the French in general.

"[8] Despite all this, the painting was originally owned in Britain: it was bought in 1876 from the London gallery of dealer Charles Deschamps by Brighton collector Captain Henry Hill.