Edgar Degas was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.
Paintings by Edgar Degas
The Ballet Class (Degas, Musée d'Orsay) (1871)
The Ballet Class (French: La Classe de danse) is an oil painting on canvas created between 1874 and 1876 by the French artist Edgar Degas. The painting depicts a group of ballet dancers at the end of a lesson, led by ballet master Jules Perrot. Known for portraying dancers, Degas captured the grace and the rigorous nature of ballet as a profession. The Ballet Class is housed in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France. It was commissioned by the composer Jean-Baptiste Faure. The Ballet Class closely resembles The Dance Class, also painted by Degas in 1874.
The Ballet Class depicts a silver-haired teacher, Jules Perrot, at the center giving private lessons to young dancers in the Hôtel de Choiseul. According to the American art critic Richard Mühlberger, Perrot's critical expression suggests the Realism and lifelike quality of the artwork. Perrot, the teacher, is staring at the dancing ballerina in the center of the composition. Perrot is also gesturing to a ballerina behind him.
Interior (Degas) (1868)
Interior (French: Intérieur), also known as The Rape (French: Le Viol), is an oil painting on canvas by Edgar Degas (1834–1917), painted in 1868–1869. Described as "the most puzzling of Degas's major works", it depicts a tense confrontation by lamplight between a man and a partially undressed woman. The theatrical character of the scene has led art historians to seek a literary source for the composition, but none of the sources proposed has met with universal acceptance. Even the painting's title is uncertain; acquaintances of the artist referred to it either as Le Viol or Intérieur, and it was under the latter title that Degas exhibited it for the first time in 1905. The painting is housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Degas painted Interior at a time when his growing commitment to Realism had led him away from his earlier preoccupation with historical subjects such as Sémiramis Building Babylon (1860–1862), Young Spartans Exercising (ca.1860), and the painting which marked his Salon debut, Scene of War in the Middle Ages (1865). His new direction was apparent by the time he exhibited Scene from the Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey, which depicted a contemporary scene, in the Salon of 1866. Degas probably intended to submit Interior for exhibition in the Salon of 1869, but it was not shown publicly until June 1905, when it was displayed at Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris.
L'Absinthe (1876)
L'Absinthe (English: The Absinthe Drinker or Glass of Absinthe) is a painting by Edgar Degas, painted between 1875 and 1876. Its original title was Dans un Café, a name often used today.
Other early titles were A sketch of a French Café and Figures at Café. Then, when exhibited in London in 1893, the title was changed to L'Absinthe, the name by which the painting is now commonly known. It is in the permanent collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
The Bellelli Family (1900)
The Bellelli Family, also known as Family Portrait, is an oil painting on canvas by Edgar Degas (1834–1917), painted c. 1858–1867, and housed in the Musée d'Orsay. A masterwork of Degas' youth, the painting is a portrait of his aunt, her husband, and their two young daughters.
While finishing his artistic training in Italy, Degas drew and painted his aunt Laura, her husband the baron Gennaro Bellelli (1812–1864), and their daughters Giulia and Giovanna. Although it is not known for certain when or where Degas executed the painting, it is believed that he utilized studies done in Italy to complete the work after his return to Paris. Laura, his father's sister, is depicted in a dress which symbolizes mourning for her father, who had recently died and appears in the framed portrait behind her. The baron was an Italian patriot exiled from Naples, living in Florence.
Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando (1879)
Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando is an oil on canvas painting by the French Impressionist artist Edgar Degas. Painted in 1879 and exhibited at the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition in Paris that same year, it is now in the collection of the National Gallery in London. It is Degas's only circus painting, and Miss La La is the only identifiable person of color in Degas's works. The special identity of Miss La La and the great skills Degas used in painting her performance in the circus made this piece of art important, widely appreciated but, at the same time, controversial.
Degas visited the recently established Cirque Fernando (built 1875) at least four times between the 19th and 25th of January 1879. The star attraction was the act of Miss La La, a mixed-race acrobat, known as la femme canon. The nickname came from her most sensational trick: to fire a cannon suspended on chains that she held in her teeth while hanging from the trapeze, hooked at the knees.
The Millinery Shop (1879)
The Millinery Shop is an oil on canvas painting by the French Impressionist artist Edgar Degas created between 1879 and 1886. It illustrates a young woman, perhaps a hat-maker or a shop customer, seated at a table examining a hat in her hands and additional hats on wooden stands. The colorful and fashionable hats take up most the frame. At 100 x 110.7 cm, it is the largest work Degas created on the subject of milliners. The painting is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
The painting includes many techniques characteristic of Degas's work and the Impressionist movement. Degas often painted his subjects from unconventional angles. The woman seated at the table is painted from a uniquely elevated angle that positions the viewer above her. Degas often used Impressionist techniques like abrupt cropping and asymmetrical composition as well. The composition of the painting is structured so that the hats take up more space than the subject at the table, giving the work a sense of spatial imbalance. Degas, like many other Impressionists, was interested in capturing images of urban modern life through the fleeting moments of the everyday. His choice to depict a woman either working or shopping in a trendy millinery shop reflects this. The use of bold pastel colors, such as the bright greens, yellows, and blues, is also characteristic of Impressionist painters.
Count Lepic and His Daughters (1871)
Ludovic Lepic and His Daughters (French: Ludovic Lepic et ses filles) is an oil painting on canvas completed ca. 1871 by the French artist Edgar Degas. The painting depicts Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic with his young daughters, Eylau and Jeanine. Degas also depicted Ludovic Lepic in the painting Place de la Concorde.
On February 10, 2008, the painting was stolen from Foundation E.G. Bührle in Zürich, Switzerland. It was recovered in April 2012 with slight damage.
The Tub (1886)
The Tub (Woman Bathing in a Shallow Tub) is an 1886 pastel drawing on heavy wove paper by the French artist Edgar Degas. The work depicts a nude woman crouched in a shallow tub, illuminated by early morning light as she bathes. It is one of seven pastels Degas created in the mid-1880s showing women bathing or drying themselves in private interiors. He exhibited The Tub alongside the related nudes at the Eighth Impressionist Exhibition in 1886, where the group was regarded as one of the highlights of the show.
The composition is marked by the angled edge of a cupboard or dressing table, whose objects interrupt the rounded form of the bather and heighten the impression of an incidental glimpse. Critics responded in varied ways, though reception leaned largely positive: many praised the pastel's realism, beauty, and technical refinement, and several drew classical comparisons, while a few critics expressed discomfort with Degas's unconventional treatment of the nude. In 1908, the pastel was donated to the Louvre, where it was first displayed in 1914. With the founding of the Musée d'Orsay, the work was transferred to that museum, where it is housed today.
Place de la Concorde (Degas) (1875)
Place de la Concorde or Viscount Lepic and his Daughters Crossing the Place de la Concorde is an 1875 oil painting by Edgar Degas. It depicts the cigar-smoking Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic, his daughters Eylau and Jeanine, his dog, and a solitary man on the left at Place de la Concorde in Paris. The man on the left may be the playwright Ludovic Halévy. The Tuileries Gardens can be seen in the background, behind a stone wall.
Notable for its innovative composition, use of negative space, and cropping, the painting reflects influences from photography and contemporary urban transformations during Haussmann's Paris. Widely thought to be lost after World War II, the painting was revealed in 1994 to be part of a collection looted by Soviet forces, later displayed at the Hermitage Museum in the controversial "Hidden Treasures Revealed" exhibition. It remains in the Hermitage's collection today.
The Dancing Class (1870)
The Dancing Class is an oil painting on wood executed around 1870 by the French artist Edgar Degas. The painting depicts a dancing class at the Paris Opéra. The dancer in the center is Joséphine Gaujelin (or Gozelin). It is one of Degas's earliest classroom scenes, and it is considered foundational to the development of his ballet series. The work is known by various titles, including The Dancing Class, Dance Class, and Rehearsal Room, and it is variously dated to 1871,1872, or 1871–1872.
The Dancing Class is one of Degas's initial attempts at depicting the rehearsal space at a time when he remained relatively unfamiliar with the environment. To make the picture, Degas relied on preparatory studies rather than creating the work in the moment. The unfamiliar presence of Degas in the practice room may have led to the dancers to appear stiff and self-conscious. This early stiffness in The Dancing Class is often contrasted with the more relaxed and fluid forms of the dancers in his future, more intimate works.
A Cotton Office in New Orleans (1873)
A Cotton Office in New Orleans, also known as Interior of an Office of Cotton Buyers in New Orleans and Portraits in an Office (New Orleans), is an oil painting by Edgar Degas. Degas depicts the interior of his maternal uncle Michel Musson's cotton firm in New Orleans. Musson, Degas's brothers René and Achille, Musson's son-in-law William Bell, and other associates of Musson are shown engaged in various business and leisure activities while raw cotton rests on a table in the middle of the office.
Degas created the painting in the early part of 1873 during an extended visit with family in New Orleans. His trip coincided with the political turbulence of the Reconstruction era, a significant period in US history. Degas exhibited the work at the 1876 Impressionist Exhibition in Paris. Degas hoped to sell the painting to a textile manufacturer in Manchester but was unsuccessful. A Cotton Office in New Orleans was eventually sold in 1878 to the Municipal Museum in Pau, France. Degas was the only major French Impressionist to travel to the United States and paint US subjects.
After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself (1890)
After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself is a pastel drawing by Edgar Degas, made between 1890 and 1895. Since 1959, it has been in the collection of the National Gallery, London. This work is one in a series of pastels and oils that Degas created depicting female nudes. Originally, Degas exhibited his works at Impressionist exhibitions in Paris, where he gained a loyal following.
Degas's nude works, including After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself, continue to spark controversy among art critics.