Tea

When Tissot moved to London in 1871, he immersed himself in the local scene, with work for Vanity Fair and genre paintings with the river Thames as backdrop. This canvas is a repetition of the left-hand portion of one of his most famous London pictures, Bad News (National Museum of Wales, Cardiff), which shows a captain and his girlfriend absorbing the news of his imminent departure while a companion prepares tea, with the Pool of London in the background. Here, the view is of the dense cityscape beyond that stretch of the river. Tissot's friend Degas owned a pencil study for this work. Look at all these details! 

Jacques Joseph Tissot was a French painter and illustrator. He was a successful painter of Paris society before moving to London in 1871. He became famous as a genre painter of fashionably dressed women shown in various scenes of everyday life.

P.S. A cup of tea in art? This way, please! Have a sit and read. <3