The Bellelli Family (c. 1858–1867)
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Early masterpiece: his aunt's family in Florence, full of domestic tension
Image: Edgar Degas · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Art
Edgar Degas
1834–1917 · French
Impressionism
Paris-born painter, pastellist and sculptor who helped organise the Impressionist exhibitions while calling himself a Realist. Famous for ballet dancers, racecourses, cafés and women bathing, seen from unexpected, snapshot-like angles.
How to spot them
- ▸Ballet dancers in rehearsal or backstage, often in pastel
- ▸Off-centre, cropped compositions influenced by photography and Japanese prints
- ▸Women washing in tubs, milliners, laundresses, and racehorses with jockeys
Key works
A Cotton Office in New Orleans (1873)
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Pau
His uncle's cotton firm; the first Degas bought by a museum
Image: Edgar Degas · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Place de la Concorde (1875)
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
Viscount Lepic, his daughters and dog, oddly cropped; thought lost after WWII
Image: Edgar Degas · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
L'Absinthe (1875–1876)
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Glum woman and man in a café, posed by actress Ellen Andrée and Marcellin Desboutin
Image: Edgar Degas · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
The Ballet Class (1874–1876)
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Dancers at the end of a lesson led by ballet master Jules Perrot
Image: Edgar Degas · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (c. 1878–1881)
Wax original: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; bronze casts in many museums
Wax figure with a real tutu and hair ribbon; the only sculpture he exhibited
Image: Edgar Degas · CC0, Wikimedia Commons
Quick-fire facts
- •More than half his works depict dancers
- •The model for the Little Dancer was Marie van Goethem, a Paris Opera Ballet student
- •Little Dancer was shown at the sixth Impressionist exhibition in 1881; its bronzes were cast only after his death
- •He exhibited in seven of the eight Impressionist exhibitions, but disliked the label
- •Worked increasingly in pastel as his eyesight deteriorated
- •Visited relatives in New Orleans in 1872–73; his mother was born there
- •Was a fierce anti-Dreyfusard, which cost him several friendships
Drill it — 9 cards
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Sources
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Edgar Degas