Portraits by Degas [Reprint 2020 ed.] 9780520331495

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CALIFORNIA STUDIES IN T H E HISTORY O F A R T Walter Horn,

General

I THE BIRTH OF LANDSCAPE PAINTING IN CHINA By Michael Sullivan

II PORTRAITS BY DEGAS By Jean Sutherland Boggs

Editor

P O R T R A I T S BY D E G A S

Self-Portrait

PORTRAITS BY

BY JEAN SUTHERLAND BOGGS

U N I V E R S I T Y OF C A L I F O R N I A Berkeley and Los Angeles 1962

PRESS

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley and Los California

Angeles,

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

London,

England

© igÓ2 by The Regents of the University of California

Published with the assistance of a grant from the Ford Foundation Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 62-11142

DESIGNED BY RITA CARROLL

Frontispiece

Self-Portrait, ca. 1857, L. 32, oil on paper applied to canvas (9% X 714)» collection Derrick Morley, Esq., Wickhambreaux, Kent.

Printed in the United States of America

T o M Y PARENTS

Htfiv/e^menr o Many people and institutions have made this book possible. I should like to begin by expressing my gratitude to the owners, both public and private, of the works illustrated, for their permission to reproduce them and often for having provided the photographs as well. I am also indebted to the following people for having helped me in different ways as I collected the material or worked on the manuscript: William and Jean Arrowsmith, Françoise Bernhard, Vittoria Bradshaw, Richard F. Brown, Bradford Cook, Douglas Cooper, Charles Durand-Ruel, James Elliott, Alan Fern, Anne Freedberg, John Gere, A. F. G. Gow, Daniel Halévy, the late Mme Elie Halévy, Walter Horn, Mme Indig, Jorin Johns, André Malécot, Gordon Martin, John M. Maxon, Agnes Mongan, the Nepveu-Degas family in (Paris, A. Franklin Page, Haverly Parker, Frank Perls, Helmut Ripperger, Mme Ernest Rouart, Germain Seligman, Peter Selz, Kate Steinitz, Frederick A. Sweet, and Vladimir Visson. I began the work itself on a Sachs Travelling Fellowship from Harvard University in 1947. The American Philosophical Society gave me a grant for work the summer of 1957. And the Research Committee of the University of California has given me varying amounts toward the work over the six years I have taught on the Riverside campus. For all of these I have been most grateful. I am also very much indebted to the museums and libraries in which I have worked and in particular to the staffs of the Cabinet des Estampes of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the library of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. I feel fortunate that the Los Angeles County Museum asked me to work on their Degas exhibition in 1958. It does not seem amiss to thank the teachers I have had who have contributed, even if indirectly, to this work. As an undergraduate at the University of Toronto vii

viii

A ckn owledgment

I was reared as a potential art historian by Professors Peter Brieger and the late John Alford; the latter was the first to show me The Bellelli Family by Degas. Two of my professors at Harvard, who died this past year, Wilhelm Koehler and Chandler R. Post, were invariably encouraging. Professors Paul J. Sachs and Jakob Rosenberg transmitted their enthusiasm for Degas. Of all of them it was probably Frederick B. Deknatel, who saw me through my Ph.D. thesis on the Group Portraits by Degas, who has given me most support. Finally perhaps my greatest debt is to those scholars who have worked in this field, including Miss Lillian Browse and Mr. John Rewald. Every step of the way I have been made conscious of the importance of the work of three French Degas scholars—the late Paul Jamot, the late Marcel Guérin, who edited Degas' letters and collected many invaluable documents, and particularly M. Paul-André Lemoisne, who catalogued his work and who has been invariably kind to me whenever I have been in Paris. J. S. B. i960

X

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

1853-1865

5

CHAPTER TWO

1865-1874

22

CHAPTER THREE

1874-1884

43

CHAPTER FOUR

1884A8°\4

60

C H A P T E R FIVE

18W70J

73

EPILOGUE

80

NOTES

84

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

A: A Comparative Chart of Lemoisne's and Author's Dating of Portraits by Degas

100

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

B: Biographical Dictionary of Sitters

105 107

INDEX

135

PLATES AND COLOR PLATES

143

Neither the painter nor his family were consistent about writing the name De Gas, de Gas, or Degas. However, since the painter normally signed his works Degas, this form is used for him in this book, and, since the members of his family ordinarily (if not habitually) wrote it De Gas, this form is used for all but the painter himself.

djst ^ Plates (Plates follow p. 142.)

1 Self-Portrait (Photograph courtesy owner) 2 Eugène Delacroix Baron Schwiter (Photograph courtesy owner) 3 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres M. Leblanc (Photograph courtesy owner) 4 Franciabigio Portrait of a Young Man (Photograph Archives Photographiques) 5 Bronzino Portrait of a Sculptor (Photograph Archives Photographiques) 6 Marguerite De Gas in Confirmation Dress (Photograph courtesy J. Seligmann & Co.) 7 Marguerite De Gas (Photograph courtesy Gimpel fils, London) 8 René De Gas (Photograph courtesy Fogg Art Museum) 9 René De Gas (Photograph courtesy owner) 10 Achille De Gas in the Uniform of a Cadet (Photograph courtesy National Gallery) 11 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Self-Portrait (Photograph Archives Photographiques) 12 Self-Portrait (Photograph Archives Photographiques) 13 Self-Portrait in a Green Vest (Photograph Archives Photographiques) 14 Self-Portrait (Photograph courtesy owner) 15 Self-Portrait (Photograph courtesy owner) 16 Self-Portrait (Photograph courtesy owner) 17 Rembrandt van Rijn Young Man in a Velvet Cap (Photograph courtesy owner) 18 J.-G. Tourny (Photograph courtesy owner) 19 Copy of Titian's Paul 111, Naples (Photograph courtesy owner) 20 René-Hilaire De Gas (Photograph Bulloz)

xi

xii 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

List of Plates Alfredo Morbilli, Duca di Sant'Angelo (Photograph courtesy DurandRuel) Edouard De Gas (Photograph Archives Photographiques) Bronzino Portrait of a Girl with a Missal (Photograph courtesy owner) Copy of a Portrait of a Girl with a Missal by Bronzino (Photograph courtesy owner) Copy of a Drawing of a Young Woman Attributed to Pontormo (Photograph courtesy owner) Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres The Gatteaux Family (Photograph Bulloz) The Bellelli Family (Photograph Archives Photographiques) Giovanna and Giulia Bellelli (Photograph courtesy owner) Elena and Camilla Montejasi-Cicerale (Photograph courtesy owner) Léon Bonnat (Photograph Archives Photographiques ) Enrique Mélida y Alinari (Photograph Archives Photographiques) Self-Portrait (Photograph courtesy owner) Self-Portrait (Photograph courtesy National Gallery) Degas and de Valernes (Photograph Archives Photographiques) Study for the Portrait of Madame Julie Burtin (Photograph courtesy owner) Study of Hands for the Portrait of Madame Julie Burtin (Photograph courtesy owner) Thérèse De Gas (Photograph Archives Photographiques) Edmond and Thérèse Morbilli (Photograph courtesy National Gallery) Edmond and Thérèse Morbilli (Photograph courtesy owner) Mme Musson and Her Two Daughters (Photograph courtesy owner) Estelle Musson Balfour (Photograph courtesy owner) Manet Listening to His Wife Play the Piano (Photograph Archives Photographiques) Edouard Manet at the Races (Photograph courtesy owner) Woman with Chrysanthemums (Mme Hertel) (Photograph courtesy owner) Edouard Manet Portrait of Emile Zola (Photograph Archives Photographiques) James Tissot (Photograph courtesy owner) Edouard Manet Woman with a Parrot (Photograph courtesy owner) Woman with a Parrot (Photograph courtesy owner) Young Girl in a Red Peignoir (Photograph courtesy owner) Mile Dubourg (Photograph courtesy owner)

List of Plates 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

xiii

Sketch of Hands for Portrait of Mile Dubourg (Photograph courtesy Baltimore Museum of Art) Sketch of Hands for Portrait of Mme Gaujelin (Photograph courtesy Durand-Ruel) Mme Gaujelin (Photograph courtesy owner) Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Mme Leblanc (Photograph courtesy owner) Mme Gaujelin (Photograph courtesy owner) Célestine Fevre in Her Bath (Photograph courtesy Knoedler's) Thérèse De Gas Morbilli (Photograph courtesy owner) De Gas Père Listening to Pagans (Photograph Archives Photographiques) Honoré Daumier "The Orchestra During a Performance of a Tragedy" from Croquis Musicaux (Photograph courtesy owner) The Orchestra (with Désiré Dihau) (Photograph Archives Photographiques) Mlle Marie Dihau at the Piano (Photograph Archives Photographiques) Yves Gobillard-Morisot (Photograph Archives Photographiques) Yves Gobillard-Morisot (Photograph Braun) Yves Gobillard-Morisot (Photograph courtesy owner) Mme Camus at the Piano (Photograph courtesy owner) Mme Camus with a Pan (Photograph courtesy National Gallery) Mme Lisle (Photograph courtesy owner) Mme Lisle and Mme Loubens (Photograph courtesy owner) Rabbi Astruc and General Mellinet (Photograph from Paul-André Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre [Paris: Paul Brame et C. M. de Hauke, copyright 1946]. Reproduced by permission) feantaud, Linet and Laine (Photograph Archives Photographiques) Henri Valpinçon and Nurse (Photograph courtesy Wildenstein) Carriage at the Races (Photograph courtesy owner) Hortense Valpinçon as a Child (Photograph courtesy owner) Edouard Manet Music Lesson (Photograph courtesy Art Institute of Chicago) Violinist and Young Woman (Photograph courtesy Durand-Ruel) Femme à la Potiche (Estelle Musson de Gas) (Photograph Archives Photographiques) Estelle Musson De Gas (Photograph courtesy Durand-Ruel) Estelle Musson De Gas (Photograph courtesy National Gallery) MathildeMusson Bell ( ? ) (Photograph courtesy owner) The Cotton Market (Photograph H. Roger-Viollet)

xiv

List of Plates

81 Achille De Gas (Photograph courtesy J. Seligmann & Co.) 82 Young Woman on a Sofa (Photograph courtesy owner) 83 Mme de Rutté (Photograph from Paul-André Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre [Paris: Paul Brame et C. M. de Hauke, copyright 1946]. Reproduced by permission) 84 Woman with an Umbrella (Photograph courtesy Durand-Ruel) 85 Woman Pulling on Gloves (Photograph courtesy owner) 86 Henri De Gas and His Niece Lucy (Photograph courtesy owner) 87 Henri Rouart and Hélène (Photograph courtesy owner) 88 Place de la Concorde (Vicomte Lepic and His Daughters) (Photograph courtesy Durand-Ruel) 89 Mile Malo ( ?) (Photograph courtesy owner) 90 Mile Malo (?) (Photograph courtesy owner) 91 Mile Malo (?) (Photograph courtesy owner) 92 Jules Perrot Seated (Photograph courtesy Durand-Ruel) 93 The Ballet Master, Perrot (Photograph courtesy owner) 94 Study for the Impresario (Photograph courtesy Durand-Ruel) 95 The Impresario (Photograph courtesy owner) 96 Paul Cézanne (?) (Photograph courtesy National Gallery) 97 Carlo Pellegrini as "Ape" Conservative Conversion (A Portrait of Lord Wharncli§e (Photograph courtesy R. Alley) 98 Carlo Pellegrini (Photograph courtesy Trustees of the Tate Gallery) 99 Friends on the Stage (L. Halévy and A. Cavé) (Photograph Bulloz) 100 Honoré Daumier, Robert Macaire Boursier (Photograph courtesy owner) 101 At the Bourse (Photograph Archives Photographiques) 102 Diego Martelli (Photograph courtesy owner) 103 Edmond Duranty (Photograph courtesy owner) 104 Mme Dietz-Monin (Photograph courtesy owner) 105 Mme Dietz-Monin (Photograph courtesy owner) 106 Léon Bonnat Mrs. Francis Shaw (Photograph owner) 107 Clairin Sarah Bernhardt (Photograph Bulloz) 108 Ellen Andrée (Photograph courtesy owner) 109 Ellen Andrée (Enlargement Middleham) n o Project of Portraits for a Frieze (Photograph courtesy owner) i n Miss Cassati at the Louvre (Photograph courtesy Wildenstein) 112 Mary Cassait Self-Portrait (Photograph courtesy Art Institute of Chicago) 113 Miss Cassati (Photograph courtesy Durand-Ruel) 114 Duchess Montejasi-Cicerale and Her Daughters Elena and Camilla (Photograph courtesy owner)

List of Plates 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126

XV

Pagans and De Gas Père (Photograph courtesy owner) Young Woman Seated (Photograph courtesy Mr. Paul Gardner) Young Woman (Photograph courtesy Wildenstein) Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Henry Samary (Photograph courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art) Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Mile Marie Dihau at the Piano (Photograph Bulloz) The Mante Family (Photograph courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art) Six Friends at Dieppe (Photograph courtesy owner) Mme Rouart and Hélène (Photograph courtesy Durand-Ruel) Mme Henri Rouart (Photograph courtesy Sam Salz) Hélène Rouart (Photograph courtesy owners) Hortense Valpinçon (Photograph courtesy owner) Mile Salle (Photograph from Paul-André Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre [Paris: Paul Brame et C. M. de Hauke, copyright 1946]. Reproduced by permission)

127 Mile Salle ( ?) (Photograph Archives Photographiques) 128 Mlle Salle ( ? ) (Photograph courtesy Durand-Ruel) 129 Mile Salle or Mile Sanlaville (?) Seated (Photograph courtesy DurandRuel) 130 Mile Salle or Mile Sanlaville ( ? ) (Photograph courtesy Durand-Ruel) 131 Study for Woman Holding Her Necf( (Photograph courtesy owner) 132 Woman Holding Her Necf^ (Photograph courtesy Durand-Ruel) 133 Rose Caron (Photograph courtesy owner) 134 Zacharian (Photograph courtesy owner) 135 Lepic and His Dog (Photograph courtesy Knoedler's) 136 Manzi (Photograph Braun) 137 Gabrielle Diot (Photograph Bulloz) 138 Woman Seated in Yellow Dress (Photograph courtesy owners) 139 Alexis Rouart (Photograph courtesy Durand-Ruel) 140 Henri Rouart and His Son Alexis (Photograph courtesy owners) 141 M. and Mme Louis Rouart (Photograph courtesy à la Vieille Russie, Inc.) 142 M. and Mme Louis Rouart (Photograph courtesy Durand-Ruel) 143 M. and Mme Louis Rouart (Photograph courtesy Durand-Ruel) 144 Mme Alexis Rouart and Her Two Children (Photograph Bulloz) 145 Preparatory Drawing of Mme Alexis Rouart (Photograph courtesy Durand-Ruel)

Intnbuct m Edgar Degas was an Impressionist painter.1 He contributed to all but one of the eight exhibitions the Impressionists held in Paris between 1874 and 1886 and, like the others (particularly Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, and Cézanne), he developed a formal vocabulary to make his paintings produce the visual sensation —although selected and intensified—of something he might have seen. Instead of the countryside, however, it was Paris (where he was born in 1834 and died in 1917) which attracted him as a painter, and it was its theaters, its cafés, its Opera House, its studios, its race tracks, its worldly people which provided his subject matter; as a result, human beings appear more frequently in his paintings than in the work of the other Impressionists. Not only did he avoid the pastoral (even insisting that he painted his landscapes from moving trains) 2 but he refused to finish a work before his subject in the way that Monet, for example, painted his haystacks. "Instantaneity," Degas would write and say, "is photography and nothing more." 3 He belonged to the classical tradition with its emphasis upon drawing and a coordinated design—even when he was recreating the active and ephemeral. Perhaps because of this traditionalism and certainly because, among the Impressionists, he was, as his famous ballerinas and bathers reveal, the most preoccupied with human appearances, Edgar Degas gave portraiture its most characteristically Impressionist form. It would be deceptive to think of Degas as a professional portrait painter. There is no record that he ever accepted a commission for a portrait and little evidence that he sold many portraits.4 In spite of his father's warning to him early in 1859, that "You know that you have little or no independent means and must make painting your career," 5 portraits could have contributed little to his livelihood. Because he refused to be pretentious about his work (even calling his paintings "ari

2

Introduction

tides"), he liked to grumble about the portraits he did paint, so that his father felt he must write: "You find yourself bored painting portraits; you will have to overcome this eventually because they will be the most beautiful jewel in your crown." 6 But still Degas complained, in 1872 about the family portraits he was making in New Orleans: "I have to make them close enough to the family's taste, in impossible light, with everything disturbed, the models full of affection but a little shameless, treating me less seriously because I am their nephew or cousin," 7 or in 1884 about the bust he had been begged to make of Hortense Valpin^on, the daughter of a friend, of which he wrote "the family watches . . . with more curiosity than tenderness."8 However, grumble as he might, more than one-fifth of Degas' work could not be described other than as portraiture, and it more subtle and varied than any other painter's in France in the second half of the nineteenth century. Why did Edgar Degas paint portraits? At times he may have had to succumb to the pressure of his family and friends, but there were certain periods, for example about 1879, when his portraits were both spirited and voluntary. The answer is certainly in Degas the man, but Degas, who used to say, "I want to be illustrious and unknown" 9 was all too successful in this aim, and his personality and life remain elusive. Nevertheless it is apparent that he was neither politically nor religiously preoccupied and that, in a humanist fashion, he thought of the individual human being as free and important in himself; this alone could justify his portraiture. Another explanation could be that Degas was a traditionalist, at least to the extent that he was not an iconoclast of the major figures of the past; indeed, he worshiped them. At the time of his death he owned one of Delacroix' greatest portraits, the painting of Baron Schwiter (plate 2), now in the National Gallery in London, and at the same time, since he was not committed to either opposing school of painting, several by Ingres, including the portrait of M. Leblanc (plate 3), now in the Metropolitan Museum. It might be argued that Degas' portraiture was an inevitable consequence of his admiration for paintings like these, in which a respect for the individual is fundamental, whether he be romantically vulnerable like Delacroix' Baron Schwiter or as sensibly forthright as Ingres' M. Leblanc. And it is true that Degas' work does have its source in theirs, and that, in his painting as a whole, there is almost none of the social generalization which the painters of the intervening generation, like Courbet, Daumier, or Millet, were inclined to derive from the individual human being. If we examine a small portrait of his from about 1876, The Impresario (plate 95), we find that Degas was, however, a more imaginative portrait painter than this traditionalism could explain. Certainly the impresario, even if we do not

Introduction

3

know his name, is as much an individual as Baron Schwiter or M. Leblanc, but he is moving, and through the freakish composition (we see him, after all, from the back) we are made more immediately responsive to him. This way of painting the individual as an intensification of an aspect of something seen, together with a consciousness of the passing of time, is perfectly consistent with Impressionism, particularly with Degas' form of it, for Degas always focused more directly and sharply upon an object (usually a human being) than the other Impressionists did. In this concentration he was sensitive to individual differences —in movement, in gesture, in voice (he was a good mimic)—external differences largely, but through which a psychological state could be revealed. Even in his paintings of laundresses or ballerinas distinct personalities tend to assert themselves. He quite naturally, therefore, chose upon occasion to paint portraits. The development in Degas' portraiture to a form which was not inconsistent with Impressionism, and then beyond it, is predictably one of the principal themes of this book. This aspect, since it is by nature chronological, cannot have any meaning unless it is based upon securely dated works. Since Degas dated few paintings, reworked many, and had a habit (fortunately more rarely with portraits) of making a later version of a theme, it is difficult to be precise, and upon occasion I have had to be content only to fit works into the five periods into which I have divided his career. In all of this I have been much indebted to M. P.-A. Lemoisne for his catalogue raisonné of Degas' paintings. I have usually accepted his dates but, when I have rejected any, I have felt I must justify my disagreement with him in the text or a footnote; Appendix A is a tabulation of these differences of opinion. His work has also relieved me of the obligation of including or cataloguing all of Degas' portraits, although I have tried to bring the entries up to date when the paintings have changed hands. I can only wish M. Lemoisne's volumes on the drawings were published so that I could make use of that valuable material as well. A basic part of the development of Degas' portraiture which is less easy to catalogue is a change in his attitude from a fairly romantic one at the beginning of his career to an acceptance of the sitters as a physical, social fact in the sixties, to a more humorous, often caustic, approach in the seventies, and, finally, to a deepening pessimism in which individual distinctions are ultimately lost. At the core of this again is Degas himself, who has left little evidence of having been a philosopher but who must, nevertheless, have had some basis for considering the individual human being important and for later changing his attitude toward him. What material I have found about this aspect of Degas I have quoted in the text and, for the sake of readability, in translations which, unless they are otherwise acknowledged, are my own.

4

Introduction

Since Degas' sitters were usually his relatives or friends, his relationship to them becomes important, for the portraits must have meant more to him than the record of something accidentally seen. Who his sitters were, when and how Degas knew them, is information against which to assess what Degas, in his portraits, does or does not tell us of them. What I have been able to discover about the sitters I have placed either in the text or in the biographical dictionary of sitters in Appendix B with a confidence that Degas was sufficiently involved with them to make such information relevant. What we learn from the portraits about his attitude toward his family and friends can be, in addition, more revealing about Degas than any biography of him yet written. Finally Degas' portraiture, although a subject in itself, must also be considered against the painting of the period in which it was produced. Degas had known most of the conservative painters of his generation, like Bonnat, Delaunay, Lerolle, Fantin-Latour, and Moreau, from attending Lamothe's classes in Paris, visiting at the Villa Medici in Rome, or copying in the Louvre, but he was closer, as a painter, to Manet and the other Impressionists. He was sympathetic to the next generation of revolutionary painters, van Gogh, Gauguin, and ToulouseLautrec, and he knew even more intimately the popular successes of their time, Boldini, John Singer Sargent, and Jacques-Emile Blanche. Thus he was aware of all the principal currents in contemporary portrait painting, so that some juxtaposition of his work with theirs seems justified when it can make his works more meaningful or can help with the evaluation of his contribution to portrait painting. If any defense needs to be made for a serious consideration of Degas' portraiture as an independent study, I trust that the plates—selected though they must be—will provide it.

CHAPTER ONE

1853-1865

The earliest important works by Edgar Degas were portraits. If, before he went to Italy in 1856, the twenty-two-year-old Degas took time to examine his drawings of his sister Marguerite and his paintings of his brothers René and Achille and of himself, he must have felt a certain satisfaction. How had he managed to become a successful portrait painter so early? His grades in drawing at his lycée, Louis-le-Grand, had been mediocre. 1 His career at the Ecole des BeauxArts was short and apparently unsatisfactory; 2 as an older man he told his friend Lafond that its teaching was pernicious and unwholesome. 3 However, in spite of his resentment later of the training he had had with Barrias 4 before entering the School of L a w in 1853, with Louis Lamothe 5 after he had rebelliously left it in 1854, and finally at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1855,6 he must somehow have been given a solid foundation by these academically trained painters to have been able to produce such skillful portraits so early. His teacher Lamothe, who had studied with Ingres and Flandrin (whom Ingres considered an unusually gifted pupil), 7 would have encouraged any of his students to revere the work of the greatest portrait painter of the period, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Degas must have been particularly susceptible to such advice, because, when he was able to afford to buy works by Ingres, he did, and by the time he died owned thirty-seven drawings and twenty paintings by this artist.8 It was probably about 1855 that Degas had his only meeting with Ingres, then seventy-five years old, an occasion he later loved to describe in versions ranging from a sacred pilgrimage to a farce, but always including Ingres' advice: "Draw lines, young man, draw lines." 9 It was also at this time that he persuaded a school friend's father, M. Valpinçon, to change his mind and lend his great Bather by Ingres to the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855. 10 Probably before the fair itself Degas had made hesitant sketches from

6

1853-1865

three Ingres paintings, Roger and Angelica, Cherubini and the Muse, and the Valpinçon Bather.11 Degas' banker father, who used to give him interesting if presumptuous advice once he was reconciled to Edgar's becoming a painter rather than a lawyer or a businessman, found Ingres on the whole inferior to the artists of the Italian Renaissance but did approve of his influence as a form of discipline because "One ought to recognize nevertheless that if painting is called upon to have a Renaissance in this century Ingres will have powerfully contributed to it by showing the way." 12 And Edgar did follow in Ingres' path, guided more by the painter's works themselves than by his style filtered through Lamothe and Flandrin ; his early portraits reveal it in their precision, their finish, and their very formality. All Degas' teachers were conservative academicians who believed their work to be an extension of the classical tradition and therefore encouraged any young student to study and copy the art of the past, particularly classical antiquity and the Italian Renaissance. M. Lemoisne, the cataloguer of Degas' work, has shown that Degas, then a pupil of Barrias, registered as early as 1853 at the Cabinet des Estampes of the Bibliothèque Nationale,13 the best place at that time to study reproductions of works of art; it must have become a habit because five years later, before the Giotto school frescos at Assisi, which he did not have time to study, Degas consoled himself that: "As soon as I'm in Paris I must go to the Bibliothèque." 14 One of his notebooks, now in the reserve section of this same Cabinet des Estampes, might easily have been produced within its walls; it is not dated but seems stylistically the earliest of their twenty-eight notebooks and probably dates from 1853.15 In it Degas copied prints of Leonardo's work, many of them grotesque caricatured heads; these show his interest in different and even exaggerated facial expressions and formations. There are also notes and drawings from Jean Cousin's Boo\ on Proportions, studied with a youthful earnestness. Degas made other copies and studies which are relevant to a consideration of his portrait painting. On a trip to Provence in July 1854, he sketched a Portrait of a Young Man, then attributed to Raphael, in the museum in Montpellier.16 In the fall of the same year he copied another work given to Raphael, Franciabigio's Portrait of a Young Man (plate 4) in the Louvre, as well as Bronzino's Portrait of a Sculptor (plate 5) in the same museum. He also made a sketch from Domenico Puligo's Pietro Carnesecchi, possibly in reproduction.17 We can reasonably ask why these portraits among the rest in these museums should have attracted the twenty-year-old Degas. In all of them there is a sense of strongly defined pattern, with shapes of a certain character. The sitters are somewhat romanticized and vaguely discontent. They are male but not particularly virile ;

1853-1865

7

indeed they come close to effeminacy in their languor, in their gestures, and in their soft, sensual mouths. It would be unwise to jump to a sudden conclusion on the basis of his copies of these Mannerist portraits because that same year Degas copied Ingres' portrait of Cherubini and the Muse and Andrea da Solario's of Charles of Atnboise/8 which are psychologically quite different, but undoubtedly Degas did find in them some response to the vague sadness and romanticism of his own personality at this time. Degas must have been a quiet but recalcitrant student (in contrast to Manet, who rebelled openly but remained in Couture's studio six years) and, although he might have won the approval of messieurs Barrias and Lamothe by worshiping Ingres and working in museums, he would also have examined the works of the rival camps led by Delacroix and Courbet. We know he admired Delacroix then, since his father Wrote to him, at a period when he was not likely to have seen any originals since 1856 (he was in Italy) : "You know that I am far from sharing your opinion [which, from the context of the letter, was enthusiastic] of Delacroix,"19 but the actual evidence of any influence of this painter upon Degas' work before 1856 seems slight. On the other hand, we have no record of his interest in Courbet aside from his paintings and drawings, but they do suggest that Degas knew Courbet's work even before he could have visited his pavilion outside the walls of the Exposition Universelle in 1855. These conditions—his teachers, his love of Ingres, his study of the art of the Renaissance, his possible interest in Courbet and Delacroix—helped determine the character of Degas' portraiture before 1856. There is, however, another side— the nature of the sitters themselves. At this time they were members of his family and presumably sat for him at home, not in a teacher's studio; the works therefore were produced independently and with an intimate knowledge of the sitters. In 1853, when Degas had graduated from the lycée, where he had been a boarder since 1845, he had settled in his family's fourth-floor apartment at 4, rue Mondovi, a small street off the rue de Rivoli at the Place de la Concorde; his father had provided a studio for him there.20 His mother was dead. His fifteenyear-old brother Achille would still have been a boarder at the Lycée Louis-leGrand, but his two sisters, Marguerite, aged eleven, and Thérèse, aged thirteen, and his eight-year-old brother René would, with his father, have made up the household. The next two years, before he entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, were probably unhappy. To please his father he went to law school but at the end of a year there, in 1854, he rebelled and insisted on becoming a painter. According to his niece, there was a serious family quarrel, and Edgar moved out of the Degas apartment into an attic room for the winter of 1854-1855.21

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year he declared his independence, Degas drew his twelve-year-old In 1854, sister Marguerite in her confirmation dress (plate 6).22 The drawing itself is so light and meticulous it immediately suggests Ingres ; however, the actual quality of the line is hesitant without the other painter's passages of arabesque. Fortunately there is no timidity in the realization of the appearance and the personality of the little girl. Marguerite's hands may be somewhat blank, but the rest of her body is expressive in its unpretentious realism and solidity, so unlike the bravado of an Ingres or the affectation of a Mannerist work, suggesting Courbet or even Corot or Millet. The head, bent a little to the side, is pathetic, and reminiscent (although it is not tilted as much) of early Raphael or Perugino.23 Finally, the confirmation veil is used psychologically, to make Marguerite seem vulnerable and passive under its protection, and compositionally (from a desire for classical order) to contain the oval of Marguerite's face and the inverted triangle of her bodice within a blunted pyramid. Not long after finishing the drawing of Marguerite, Degas began to draw René, who would have been ten the year (1855) ^ painter dated the drawing in the Davis collection (plate 8). 24 The line is softer, bolder, more strongly accented and more suggestive of form, and the hands are more articulated. The position of the body, although still solid, is more energetic, and the expression of the face has a certain defensive strength. Here there is even greater evidence of Courbet's influence in a general sturdiness in the total drawing. Degas at this period made many informal drawings of René, painting, sleeping or even snoring, 25 but when it came to the portrait drawing and finally to the painting now in the Smith College Museum of Art (plate 9), he adopted a more formal, and in the painting a somewhat Mannerist, arrangement. Before he went to Italy in 1856 Degas probably also painted his other brother Achille, 26 who would have been eighteen; he does not seem any older in the painting from the Chester Dale collection (plate 10), now on loan at the National Gallery in Washington.27 Like Edgar in a photograph of about the same time,28 Achille does not stand independently but leans on the back of a chair for support. The indolence of his body, the black and gold uniform which dominates it, his clearly defined and varied silhouette, the rounded features of his face, even a certain flatness and lack of spatial clarity, suggests the Mannerist artists Degas had copied. There is, at the same time, a franker exposure of unhappiness and loneliness than a Mannerist portrait would betray. Finally Degas painted himself, perhaps partly as a form of self-examination, partly out of loneliness, and partly from sheer expediency. There are several self-portraits which must belong to this period; the earliest is probably one in the collection of the Marquis de Ganay in Paris (plate 1 ) , a modest work, timidly

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built up with thin layers of paint on paper. Degas, then twenty (it was painted in 1854), 29 i s dearly an artist, for he is in shirt sleeves and has a palette in his hands. His face is rounded, boyish (as it is also in a related charcoal drawing on canvas)30 and slightly unhappy, but more defensively than indulgently so. The most finished of the self-portraits is one, now in the Louvre, which can be dated 1855 (plate 12). 3 1 Here the painter is a gentleman, formally dressed even if his tie is a little askew and his hair somewhat uneven. In his hand he does hold a pencil, in the same position that Ingres held one in the self-portrait of 1804, now at Chantilly (plate 11), 3 2 but his portrait has none of Ingres' heroic vitality or grandeur; rather, as he sits erect and seems to withdraw defensively, he appears ordinary, weary, petulant. In other self-portraits,33 clearly related to the Louvre painting, there are faint variations in mood from suggestions of haughtiness to uncertainty; however, in all of them the pouting mouth and the grave, almost naive eyes give one a feeling of Degas' unhappiness. There is an element of self-dramatization which fits in with his niece's description of his departure from the family roof at this period, one she would have heard from the painter or from his sister, her mother, Marguerite. Mile Fevre wrote: "With great sadness and no less nobility Degas left his father's home and went to live in an attic." 34 She also added about his father's reaction: H e hadn't forgotten the scene during which Edgar, so respectful, so gentle, so good, so timid, had answered him with a desperate cry: " I want to be a painter." T h e banker was worried about his son's situation. Through one of his friends he learned of his hard and noble existence. T h e future artist didn't frequent any neighborhood places of pleasure. H e had a horror of the bohemian life and he was beginning to be admired by his masters. 35

In this simply and sentimentally told story there are strong echoes of Degas' self-pity and the shock of betrayal which the self-portraits also suggest. Another group of self-portraits (see plate 13) 3 6 may represent his recovery once he returned to the family roof; in these he seems more gently vulnerable, bewildered but without any hostility. What had Degas accomplished in portrait painting before he left for Italy at the age of twenty-two? These works could not have appeared unconventional to people accustomed to the portraits of Ingres and Flandrin. They were too modest in scale and handling to have attracted any attention if they had been exhibited at the Salon. They were skillful, but not unusually so for a painter in his twenties who had received an academic training. There were touches of realism, but these did not assert themselves unduly in the otherwise decorous paintings and drawings. The particular gift of Degas, which might not then have seemed so apparent, was to make a mood emerge from the paintings as if

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it were the sitter's; we are made to sense Marguerite's obedience and dependability, René's truculence and independence, Achille's passivity and almost indolence, and Edgar's own unhappy bewilderment. The sitters were young, but in each Degas makes us feel a character emerging.

Italy, 1856-1859 In 1856 Degas went to Italy. He may have been there before, since most of his relatives on his father's side lived in Naples or Florence.37 The painter's father, Auguste de Gas, had been born in 1807 in Naples to an Italian mother and a French father who had fled from France during the Revolution.88 When Edgar went to Naples in 1856 he would probably have found his bachelor uncles Achille, Edouard, and Henri living with his grandfather René-Hilaire either at their town house, the Palazzo del Principe Pignatelli di Monte Leone at 53, Trinità Maggiore, or in the country at S. Rocco di Capodimonte. His widowed aunt Rosa-Adelaida Morbilli, Duchessa di S. Angelo a Frosolone, with her three sons, Alfredo (the heir), Adelchi, and Edmondo, and his aunt Stefanina Primicile Carafa, with her husband, Marchese di Cicerale e Duca di Montejasi, and her two baby daughters, had separate households in Naples. Another aunt, Laura, the baroness Bellelli was, with her two daughters, sharing her husband's political exile in Florence, but apparently she and her children were permitted to visit Naples, since Degas painted her daughter Giovanna there in 1856.39 Edgar showed some independence by deciding to stay in Rome rather than with his relatives; it was not until August 1858, and then more or less by accident, that he moved in with the Bellellis in Florence.40 He made trips to visit his grandfather and other members of the family in Naples, but he seems, perhaps partly because of the colony of French artists around the French Academy at the Villa Medici,41 to have preferred Rome. This period was definitely one of selfeducation; he drew from life at the Villa Medici, he copied works of art, he gave himself advice like the sentence in a notebook in the Louvre: "I must thoroughly realize that I know nothing at all; it is the only way to get ahead." 42 As an old man he reminiscently told his friend de Valernes that "It was the most extraordinary period of my life. I wrote nothing to my family; I drew." 4 3 On November 8, 1857, Degas dated an impression, now in the Bibliothèque Doucet, of an etching of himself (plate 16) with delicately etched lines, crosshatched to form a web of light and dark, which he enriched by wiping ink over parts of the plate. His character had not been completely transformed from the Louvre portrait two years before, but his lower lip is somewhat withdrawn, he does wear his bulkier clothes more easily, and he stands with a greater indepen-

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dence as if ready, if not happy, to meet external challenges. In the play of light and shadow there is a suggestion of his increased response to the sensual side of his medium; this same quality exists in the beautiful small paintings (plates 14, 15) of himself in oil on paper which are related to this etching.44 He is still, however, the sort of young man who could have written in a notebook in Rome the spring before: "Oh, how doubt and uncertainty tire me." 45 The copies Degas was making almost relentlessly did affect his portraiture. In an etching of his friend Tourny (plate 18) from 1857 there is a definite reflection, even in the features, of a Rembrandt (plate 17) that Degas had copied in another etching.46 However, he destroyed the baroque action by flattening the cap and the baroque concentration by breaking up most of the plate with etched lines. Nevertheless, something of the keenness and realism of the Rembrandt portrait of a young man remains. In the most ambitious portrait completed during these Italian years, the severe, polished painting of his grandfather Rene-Hilaire De Gas (plate 20), Edgar made use of his study of Titian's Paul III in the Naples Museum (plate 19) 41 Presumably he had been struck by certain similarities in their features and in bearing, and so he reversed the composition of Titian's painting and used it as the basis for his own. However, Ingres' influence seems stronger finally than Titian's; Degas placed his grandfather in a contemporary setting which he arranged with more geometric formality than even Ingres would have done. It is an austere portrait of this eighty-seven-year-old man, who may have been a stockbroker and a banker but had also been something of an adventurer as well.48 The increasing influence of Ingres upon Degas' portraiture may have been stimulated by his environment. Perhaps, although removed from the actual works themselves, he recalled them when he found himself, like Ingres in his earlier years, in Italy. In a drawing of his uncle Edouard De Gas (plate 22), which he dated October 1857, the proud bearing of M. De Gas and the refined and restrained draftsmanship are superficially like the pencil portraits Ingres had made in Italy to eke out a livelihood. This is also true of the drawings of his cousins Alfredo and Adelchi Morbilli.49 These Ingresque pencil portraits must have been a satisfactory way for Degas to record his relatives' features, but they seem, perhaps apart from the seated portrait of Alfredo (plate 21), 50 to be unrelievedly serious, with the accents of the drawing no more spirited than Degas' interpretations of his sitters' personalities; they are not nearly as animated as an Ingres. The most important work Degas did in portraiture during his Italian stay was in preparation for his Portrait of the Bellelli Family. M. Lemoisne has recreated the incidents leading up to the painting from letters the elder De Gas wrote to his son in Florence.51 After a trip, which is well documented in one of his note-

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books,52 Edgar arrived at his aunt's household early in August, 1858. He found that the baroness was in Naples because her father (Edgar's grandfather), ReneHilaire De Gas, was seriously ill there, but her husband persuaded Edgar to stay until she returned. He had to wait over a month because Rene-Hilaire's illness was fatal; he died August 31. 53 By then the painter was so content in Florence that his father found it impossible to pry him from the Bellelli household until the following spring; Edgar produced many ready excuses to stay, including a portrait of the Baroness Bellelli. He made charming and often tender drawings of her, and of her two daughters Giovanna and Giulia.54 It would be interesting to have more detailed information about life within the Bellelli household.55 We know that the baron, whose title had been given to his father by Murat,56 was a political revolutionary and a supporter of Cavour, that he was exiled from Naples in 1849, and that after a period in France and England he settled in Florence until the Kingdom of Italy was created in i860. In the period in which Degas visited the family in Florence the baron was probably disturbed by his enforced political idleness; the only hint we have about his personality then is in a letter from the painter's father in which he advised his son "not to give your uncle a real reason for discontent."57 The baron's unhappiness in Florence is also suggested in a letter he wrote to his brother-in-law Edouard de Gas on February 8, i860: "You cannot have any idea what it is like to live with a family for several long years in furnished rooms."58 Of the aunt we know even less; she would have been forty-four in 1858 and very shortly became pregnant. Degas seems to have been fond of her and once, writing about mourning in a notebook, he added "which my aunt Laura wears so well." 59 During the winter Degas spent with the Bellellis he copied many works, particularly in the Uffizi, and some of them affected his family portrait. In one notebook he made a light pencil drawing (plate 24) from a Bronzino, Girl with a Missal, in the Uffizi (plate 23), a painting which, by its very formality, would have attracted him at this period; however, in his drawing, he lightened the effect and gave the head a wistfulness and sweetness the Bronzino does not possess. He may have remembered this Bronzino in drawing and painting Giovanna Bellelli, in preparation for the finished family portrait, particularly in the form of the pinafore about her neck, but actually Giovanna seems closer to another Bronzino, the Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi in the same museum. It was probably also that winter that Degas made a painting (plate 25) from a drawing in the Uffizi by Pontormo,60 which, particularly as Degas translated it, has a largeness and a serenity which again he may have tried to capture in his portraits of Giovanna. Finally, just before leaving Italy for France, Degas stopped in Genoa and at

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the Palazzo Rosso on April 2, 1859, at 2:30 P.M., he stood in admiration before Van Dyck's Portrait of the Marchesa Brignole-Sale.61 "She is," he wrote, "indeed beautiful and of a great family." 62 He noticed the suppleness of her hand, her head with "its firm nose, pinched mouth,"63 which seemed so alive. He also studied the Portrait of Geronima Brignole-Sale with her Daughter, which he found both beautiful and sad.64 It is not surprising that there are echoes of both in his portrait of the Baroness Bellelli. In April, 1859, Edgar returned with many studies of the Bellellis to a studio his family had found for him on the rue Madame in Paris.65 This studio was large enough to permit him to work upon the canvas for The Bellelli Family (over six feet high and over seven feet wide) and also upon the historical works which were to engross him for the next six years. Paris, 1859-1865 Although the twenty-five-year-old Degas must have brought from Florence at least one notebook with sketches of the Bellellis, a great many drawings, probably two oils, and possibly one pastel of the family,66 he did return to Italy in i860 and date a drawing of his uncle.67 The baron's fortunes were changing; before i860 was over he had returned to Naples from exile, was made director of its postal and telegraphic system and in January, 1861, was appointed a senator of the new Kingdom of Italy.68 Although Degas had wanted to work out some of the details, like the pose of his uncle, while he was in the Bellelli household again, he had probably already begun to work upon the large canvas. In any case he presumably finished the picture (plate 27), the largest and most ambitious of all his portraits, in i860 or 1861.69 The Bellelli Family suggests many influences upon Degas. A little Van Dyck may be detected in the dignified bearing of the baroness, somewhat more of Clouet or of Holbein in the fine formation of her head, some Bronzino in the portrait of her daughter Giovanna or even in the soft blue wall 70 behind the severe black of the baroness' dress. One might sense Courbet in the weight of the color and paint and in the figure of the baron. But it is Ingres, of course, who comes most to mind, because The Bellelli Family seems, as many have written, a translation of an Ingres drawing, like The Gatteaux Family (plate 26) or The Forestier Family?1 into a large oil painting. Finally, of course, it is none of these things; the influences may be recognized, but they are fused into a work which is triumphantly Degas. The Bellelli Family is conspicuously a revealing social document—more so perhaps than an Ingres drawing, since the identification of the sitters with the setting

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seems more complete. Theirs is a prosperous home with the floor carpeted, the walls papered, the simple mantelpiece with an elaborate clock 72 on it and above it a mirror reflecting a chandelier. The chair 73 upon which the baron sits seems solidly comfortable; the table,74 on which the baroness presses her hand, disciplined and graceful. There are touches of a quiet domestic life—the bassinet, the woolen bag, and the dog—and others to indicate some literacy—the newspaper on the table and the books on the mantelpiece. The restraint of this room could be merely the result of good taste, but when one examines the three female members of the family it seems to reflect something more fundamental. Although all three bear themselves in an aristocratic way—Giovanna standing simply with propriety and dignity, the baroness proudly, and Giulia twisting on her chair with a defiance of conventions—their dress, in spite of their earrings and Giulia's pendant and not just because they are in mourning, seems soberly and virtuously bourgeois. Why should the sisters wear pinafores in what is, after all, a formal portrait P Degas may have enjoyed painting their whiteness and the relief it gave to the painting, but they also appear in the sketches before the work took its final form. The baroness's coat and scarf are even severer and suggest an almost puritan cultivation of self-denial. One can conclude that a sober bourgeois life,75 with its symbols, the clean pinafores, the sewing, the reading, and the dog, must have been led in the Bellelli household, but sobriety is combined with an aristocratic awareness of status regardless of possession, which makes the baroness in her simple black dress look formidable when compared with the Marchesa Brignole by Van Dyck, whom Degas had so recently described as "of a great family." Psychologically the painting is also complex. The two sisters are contrasted: Giovanna quiet, passive, contained, slightly unhappy, protected by her mother, unresponsive to her sister and father, and Giulia active, unconventional, a little cocky, seemingly aware of her mother and sister behind her and of her father beside her. There is the mother, protective toward Giovanna, but standing indomitably and proudly aloof, severed by space and other barriers, including presumably Giulia, from her somewhat discouraged husband, who sits, surprisingly considering the formality of the others, with his back toward us. A third important aspect of the painting is its narrative intention. In this respect it is not inconsistent that Degas was working on The Bellelli Family when he was painting The Daughter of Jephthah, or finishing it when he was beginning Setniramis or The Young Spartans. The Bellelli Family too is telling a story, but instead of retelling an old one it is suggesting a new one, wtih many provocative allusions in which the character of the family, with both its solidarity and its internal tensions and problems, is at the core. The painting is full of innuendos, even in the relationship of the baroness's pregnancy to the mourning she is wear-

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ing for her father. It is almost like a game of charades in which every gesture, every object, in spite of its conventional form, is given its fullest meaning. How would the critics have reacted to this if The Bellelli Family had been exhibited when it was painted, say in the Salons of 1861 or 1863 or with the rejected works in the Salon des Refusés ? The journalists who wrote for periodicals like L'Artiste, L'Illustration, and the Gazette des Beaux-Arts did not show much consistency in their judgments,76 but it seems safe to say that they might have felt a certain respect for the representational qualities of the work 77 (the inconsistency in the handling of the wall at the left was so characteristic of spatial description in nineteenth-century painting that I do not think they would have been concerned with it). One might conclude from their enormous admiration for Hippolyte Flandrin,78 whom one critic called "one of the best works of M. Ingres"79 that they might have been impressed by a painting which to us seems to have grown out of the same tradition. "We could feel that Degas, even more than the painter Lehmann, possessed what Louis Lagrange in i860 called "the pure and delicate taste which is the distinctive mark of the pupils of M. Hippolyte Flandrin."80 However, in spite of all this, the critics would presumably have laughed at the painting and there would have been cartoons of it, with witty captions, in Le Charivari and L'Illustration. Why would The Bellelli Family have disturbed critics in 1861 or 1863 ? For one thing, it would have appeared too oppressively and convincingly bourgeois.81 At the same time, curiously enough, it would have disturbed them because of a certain lack of propriety, particularly in the exposure of the distant and strained relationship between husband and wife.82 The realism of Degas' attitude in suggesting rather monotonous unhappiness and tensions in a family as obviously well-bred, as virtuously bourgeois, as prosperous as this would have most bewildered the critics in this unhappy work, which has little of the relief and none of the catharsis of true tragedy. That such realism should be rendered so formally would have made it more difficult to understand and consequently ludicrous. The Bellelli Family, regardless of what the critics would have thought, shows Degas' awareness of the human being existing in an environment which he, others, and custom have created, in a cycle of time (the womb, the infant, the child, the adult, and finally death), in relationships to other human beings which can be intimate and yet remote, solid and yet restrained; these are things Degas suggests provocatively, with a basic realism and a novelist's perception, but within a pictorial form which is surprisingly restricting. The pictorial form for The Bellelli Family was presumably derived from Ingres, even if Degas did make telling use of his departures from this tradition (particularly in the figure of the father) ; in his other portraits from the early

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1860's, there seems to have been an even more limiting formula—from the daguerreotype. Only one instance of Degas' having copied a daguerreotype has been discovered, and that was his use of the head and shoulders of the Princess Metternich,83 from a photograph of her with her husband, as the basis for the modest painting now in the National Gallery in London. However, it is possible that Degas did use photographs upon other occasions; they were considered by critics84 and artists 85 of the period to be legitimate guides for the portrait painter. In four of his double portraits, painted between i860 and 1865, The Bellelli Sisters, The Montejasi-Cicerale Sisters, Sgr. and Sgra. Morbilli, and his SelfPortrait with de Valernes, the figures assume poses which were the conventions of the contemporary photographer. Values are handled as gradually and as descriptively as they appear in a daguerreotype, and in none of the paintings is there any suggestion of an environment which a photographer's studio might not have provided. Degas also tried to give the illusion of being as detached as a camera, revealing individual character only in accidental details. Two of the portraits which have a daguerreotype quality, The Bellelli Sisters and The Montejasi-Cicerale Sisters, are of pairs of Degas' Italian cousins. The portrait of Giovanna and Giulia Bellelli (plate 28), which is probably the earlier of the two, seems based not only upon a current photographic convention but also upon an unfinished portrait Degas had begun of them in 1857 o r 1858.86 In the painting of the family the clear separation between the sisters was linked to Giovanna's reliance upon her mother and Giulia's attachment to her father; in The Bellelli Sisters there is no suggestion of any relationship to their parents. The compositional device is, like the one of The Bellelli Family, formally and obviously posed, somewhat reminiscent of the portrait of two men by a sixteenthcentury Italian painter which Degas had copied in the Louvre,87 but, unlike The Bellelli Family, it involves another element—a clear dependence upon the spectator. In the family portrait it is the relationship of the members of the family to each other which is revealing; in The Bellelli Sisters it is their relationship to us. The fact that Giovanna faces us somewhat direcdy, her head held up a little more self-consciously than in the family portrait and with her hands revealing her shyness, and the fact that Giulia is turned away from us (somewhat out of focus) is used by Degas to reveal, almost symbolically, the differences in the nature of their relationships to the external world. The other protrait of sisters was of his and the Bellelli's cousins, Elena and Camilla Montejasi-Cicerale (plate 29), daughters of the painter's father's sister Stefanina, who had married Gioacchino Primicile Carafa, Marchese di Cicerale et Duca di Montejasi.88 There is a similar compositional device and a similar contrast between the sisters, but they seem older and more sensitive than their

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Bellelli cousins. (Elena is responsive to us, the delicate bridge of her nose slightly tense; Camilla, whose head is bent, is gently and sadly reflective.) The comparison of an extroverted with an introverted personality is perhaps obvious, but does show the same provocative suggestion of narrative possibilities as The Bellelli Family. In painting these two pairs of sisters Degas was not in the least interested in showing the nature of their attitudes toward each other. They are clearly sisters in features and in dress, but in each case they seem unaware of the other's existences. Ingres, Chassériau, and Rouget painted portraits of sisters89 which are as formal as Degas' but in which there is an attempt to show some relationship, perhaps merely of habit, between them. Degas' own contemporaries, like Whistler and Fantin-Latour,90 who had submitted a painting of his two sisters to the Salon in 1859, would have tried to show them doing some ordinary thing in their everyday setting. Only Degas in his portraits of sisters was interested in the juxtaposition of related but separate personalities. The most penetrating of the double portraits of this period is the Boston Museum's painting of Edmond and Thérèse Morbilli (plate 39). Edmondo, or Edmond as he was known by the French-speaking members of the family, was another of the painter's Italian cousins, the son of the Duchess Morbilli and the brother of Alfredo and Adelchi; he had with special papal dispensation in 1863 married the painter's sister Thérèse. We know very little about Edmond Morbilli.91 Thirty years later Degas in a letter from Interlaken referred to him as "the poor invalid,"92 and two years later in 1895 wrote his sister Marguerite: "thus, poor Edmond, whom I described at Saint Valéry in a state to which Thérèse was so accustomed, never losing hope, that she couldn't see it any longer, was able to get back to Naples to die there in December."93 But this poignant picture of the older man may tell us nothing about the younger one. About Thérèse we know almost as little; Degas refers to her in those same letters as "heroic," 94 presumably self-sacrificing. He had of course painted and drawn her as a young girl. Mile Fevre illustrates an early portrtait95 of her with her straight black hair, her oval face, and her solemn eyes. A drawing of her, with an Ingreslike purity and clarity, is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. René, the painter's and Thérèse's brother, remembered another portrait of Thérèse painted about the time of her marriage.96 In this work, which is now in the Louvre (plate 37), Degas probed through the façade of her impassive face and the dignity of her posture to find the one point, her left hand,where tensions could be revealed. With that touch he made her seem self-conscious, a little shy, reserved, and wary of the spectator. [Degas used the hand as tellingly in another work from 1863, the portrait of Mme Burtin,97 for which there is a drawing in the Fogg Art

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Museum (plate 35) and a study of her hand (plate 36) in a notebook in the Bibliothèque Nationale.] Degas painted another portrait of Edmond and Thérèse Morbilli (plate 38) which he scraped in dissatisfaction. Unlike the Boston portrait, this one does not fit into the daguerreotype convention; it is composed diagonally, even into space. The figures sit informally and with some probability, as if they were resentful (again a literary allusion) of an intrusion, perhaps by a woman who has just walked out the door on the right. Thérèse looks calm and happy, Edmond, in the position of his body and the expression on his face, superbly arrogant like his brothers. This experimental portrait may be earlier than the Boston one, although in its greater informality it does anticipate Degas' work of the latter half of the sixties. When Degas came to paint the Boston picture of Thérèse with her husband, he removed the distractingly elaborate hat of the single portrait, widened her eyes, and opened her mouth a little so that she seems less self-possessed, her uncertainty now completely exposed. Finally Degas exploited the daguerreotype convention by the suggestion, in her position behind her husband and in her gestures, particularly in the left hand placed tenderly upon her husband's shoulder, of her lack of self-assurance and her dependence upon Edmond Morbilli. Signor Morbilli, in contrast to his wife, is imposingly large and ruddy, the bulk of his body in itself implying his ability to protect her. He sits rather unconventionally upon his chair and leans forward, giving one a sense of his physical energy in contrast to Thérèse's nervous lassitude. His head is thrust back so that he seems an arrogant Zeus, the very epitome of the self-possession his wife does not assume so readily. Thérèse and Edmond Morbilli are more closely involved formally and emotionally than the sitters in the other double portraits; intersecting diagonals hold them together so that we can not visually disentangle one from the other. If this portrait is compared with drawings by Ingres,98 it becomes apparent how psychologically sensitive Degas was, how conscious of inner tensions. There is a realism, particularly in the description of the state of mind of the Morbillis, which has little to do with the physical or social realism which disturbed critics at the 1861 Salon in Manet's portrait of his parents." Within his formal vocabulary Degas had painted a convincing and tender portrait of this young couple in the complexities of their defenses with each other and the outside world.100 Probably before painting the Morbillis, Degas did another double portrait, of himself with his close friend, the painter de Valernes (plate 34). At this time he made small portraits of his friends like Paul Valpinçon,101 a friend from his days at the lycée, whose father had collected the works of Ingres and who owned a

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place in Normandy which Degas visited regularly. And in the Bonnat Museum in Bayonne there are two paintings by Degas—one a small, gentle, mother-ofpearl-colored painting of Léon Bonnat himself (plate 30), an academic painter Degas had met at the Villa Medici in Rome. The other portrait (plate 3 1 ) , of Bonnat's brother-in-law, a painter named Enrique Mélida, is by contrast coral and pumpkin-colored, warm, coarse, and vigorous. Degas, however, did not pay the same tribute of friendship to any of these men that he did in painting de Valernes with himself. Apparently Degas had met de Valernes before his trip to Italy; later they used to copy together in the Louvre with Bonnat and Fantin-Latour. Their friendship lasted even when it had to be carried on by letters 102 or by Degas' occasional visits to de Valernes' home in Carpentras; Degas would always call him in his letters "my old comrade." In 1890 he wrote to him with unusual intimacy: "You have always been the same man, my old friend. There has persisted in you a delicious romanticism which dresses and colours truth, giving it that air of absurdity which, as I have told you, is very wholesome." 103 Again in painting a double portrait Degas returned to the daguerreotype for inspiration. De Valernes' seated, crossed-leg pose was a common one in photographs, and Degas, with his hand placed characteristically across his bearded chin,104 could have been sitting in some studio. Behind them, with a remarkable suggestion of light for the period, is a scenic backdrop of Rome, a city which had meant a great deal to them both. It was to de Valernes that Degas had written of his stay in Italy: "It was the most extraordinary period of my life." 1 0 5 However, there is still no suggestion of any physical or psychological relationship between them, for again, as he did in the portraits of his cousins, Degas was comparing rather than relating his sitters, and for this the daguerreotype motive provided a convenient excuse. De Valernes appears dapper, urbane, and rather merry. 106 The painter's face is darker than his friend's and, like Giulia Bellelli's or Camilla Montejasi-Cicerale's, more in shadow. He looks out apparently directly but by no means happily; on the whole he appears resigned, more bored with himself than he had seemed in any of his earlier self-portraits, indicating a lack of interest which may have been genuine, since he never painted himself after this portrait, which may be dated about 1864.107 This self-portrait, if the last, was not the only one Degas painted during this period from his return to Paris in 1858 until 1865. About 1863 he had painted (plate 32) two 1 0 8 in which he appears older and more vigorous than his earlier portraits had shown him to be. His white blouse is open at the chest, his beard has grown generously, his thick hair sprouts irregularly from his head. He tosses his head back, and his eyes peer forth from under half-shut lids, his expression

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and attitude one of suspicion and defiance. A l l this is painted boldly with an exaggerated emphasis upon form in which the influence of Courbet's selfportraits is apparent. Marcel Guérin in his catalogue of the self-portraits wrote of one of these: "It is almost a painfully expressive head. Was it a voluntary exploration ? Is it simply the unconscious reflection of preoccupations, of sufferings and cares of the moment? W e do not know anything of the intimate life of Degas and it is impossible to make even any conjectures and suppositions." 109 Apparently his family was bewildered by him at this time. In 1863 his eighteen-yearold brother René wrote to N e w Orleans about him: " H e works furiously and thinks only of one thing, his painting." 110 A year later he wrote: "Whatever is fermenting in that head is frightening. For my part I believe and am convinced that he has not only talent but genius. Only will he ever be able to express what he feels? That is the question."111 His father was even more cynical when he wrote of his thirty-year-old son: "Our Raphael works all the time but has produced nothing finished although the years are passing." 112 These portraits in their strong romanticism seem far removed from Degas' world-weary, disturbingly honest representation of himself in the portrait with de Valernes. It was probably between the two that he painted the suave, gentlemanly self-portrait in the Gulbenkian collection (plate 33) which was reputedly a bourgeois answer to Courbet's Bonjour Monsieur Courbet. In spite of the poetic quality in the light and in the landscape opening up behind him, compared with Courbet, Degas seems ironic and urbane. This identification of himself with a respectable bourgeois milieu suggests a desire for social discipline which may have been responsible for the formal composition of his portraits in spite of the basic romanticism of his other work at this time. What finally did Degas accomplish with this photographic convention ? In translating it into oil painting he could be expected to find painterly compensations for it in color and scale. He seems to have done so in size, for these are large works, much bigger than a photograph could be. He did vary the matière somewhat; there are roughened areas in the wall behind the Montejasi-Cicerales and on the band of Giovanna Bellelli's sleeve, and the flesh was painted more fully than a dress. But although certainly the texture is more varied than in a photograph, there is not a great sensual pleasure to be had from the surface of these paintings. He was subdued with color, reducing the Montejasi-Cicerales and the Bellellis to neutral blacks and browns against which only the flesh tones have any warmth. In the portrait of Edmond and Thérèse Morbilli, Degas did make the husband's flesh warmer than his wife's, in part for compositional balance; but on the whole the gray-blue of her dress or the acrid yellow of most of the wall seem applied color rather than an organic part of the design. Later Degas

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21

was such a subtle and apparently instinctive colorist that here he must have been restraining himself, partly for a sober and convincing impression and partly not to distract from the formality of the composition. For whatever reason Degas chose the photographic convention, it does not seem to have been as a witticism, nor was it, when one thinks of The Bellelli Family, a step toward a greater naturalism. All the spontaneity of a pose like Giulia Bellelli's was sacrificed to positions which could be sustained for a daguerreotype, and were therefore still. However, although he tried to appear to be as detached as a camera, he was able to exploit accidental details and penetrate his sitters' masks, to find uncertainty, defensiveness, and unhappiness underneath. One of the most touching of Degas' portraits from this period must have been one of the last in this genre. It is a portrait of an aunt and two cousins on his mother's side of the family, Mme Michel Musson (his aunt Odile) and her daughters Désirée and the recently widowed Estelle Musson Balfour (plate 40). The painter's mother had been born into a Creole family in New Orleans.113 Her father had brought his children to France to be educated, and only one of them, Michel, had returned to his birthplace, married, established a business, and raised a family there. During the Civil War, after Estelle's husband had been killed in the battle of Corinth in Mississippi, Michel Musson decided that these three members of his family, with Estelle's posthumous infant daughter Joe, should be sent to France. The painter's family welcomed them when they arrived, and Edgar visited them at Bourg-en-Bresse, where they were living, for the important celebration of the New Year. It was on the Feast of the Epiphany, 1865, that Degas painted this ironically sad portrait of them. This is a watercolor drawing of considerable formality and spatial severity, each figure quite distant from the others, but there are elements in it which show the direction Degas' portraiture would almost immediately assume. The bodies of the three women are more natural, relaxed, and in their very apathy and inertia more revealing than in any of Degas' more formal portraits of this period. Their room is barely indicated by his aunt's chair and the rococo mantelpiece with the books on it, but it does create an environment for them. And even in the suggestion of their unhappiness Degas gives a sense of the unity of their feeling, without the strain or tensions in the other portraits. This is also true of the relationship he establishes between the spectators and sitters. We respond directly to their unhappiness, particularly to Estelle, whom Degas also painted at this time in a portrait made movingly lonely by the background of barren trees (plate 41). Degas himself was less an observer—a camera—than a sympathetic human being responding with a certain compassion to their loneliness. He seemed finally to have broken emotionally through the picture plane.

CHAPTER TWO

1865-1874

On the 14th of July, 1871, Mme Morisot wrote to her daughter, the Impressionist painter, Berthe Morisot: I found the Manet Salon in just the same state as before; it is nauseating. If people were not interested in hearing individual accounts of public misfortunes I think little would have been said. T h e heat was stifling, everybody was cooped up in the one drawing room, the drinks were warm. But Pagans sang, M m e Edouard [Manet] played and Monsieur Degas was there. That's not to say that he flitted about; he looked very sleepy—your father seemed younger than he. Mademoiselle E v a [Gonzales] has grown uglier. Madame Camus had a sugary manner but Tiburce found her ravishing. Champfleury wore an air of importance, occupied the best chair with his legs stretched out, not saying a word to anyone— you can see this ensemble from where you are . . . 1

This paragraph can act as an introduction to most of the portraits Degas painted between 1865 and 1871. With his father, who loved music, he spent many evenings at parties given by his friend, the painter Manet, and his pianist wife, and he painted, as Mme Morisot might have described them, his father listening to Pagans sing, Manet listening to his wife play, and Mme Camus looking both sweet and ravishing. Edouard Manet, whom Degas, according to tradition, had met while copying in the Louvre 2 not long after his return from Italy, may have been somewhat responsible for this new sociability; he introduced Degas to his drawing room and to his closest friends there and also accompanied him to the Café Guerbois, where they met with the group of painters who were later to be known as Impressionists. Although the two men must have been very different, their backgrounds were nevertheless sufficiently Parisian, bourgeois, and prosperous, and their approach to art similarly creative but with a respect for the traditions

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of the past, to have made it possible for them to become friends. They went to cafes and race tracks together, and worked occasionally from the same model.3 If Manet were in England he would regret, as he wrote to the painter FantinLatour, that Degas was not there,4 and Degas in New Orleans would be reminded of Manet by the color.5 At this time Degas often made full-length drawings and paintings of his artist friends—James Tissot,8 Gustave Moreau,7 and Emile Levy,8 and particularly of the small, handsome, dapper Manet. In the drawings 9 (plate 43) we feel Manet's earnestness, energy, and quickness of temper in every casual movement and expression. From such studies Degas found a pose for a painting of this friend with his wife (plate 42) which both characterized Manet and showed the nature of the role he played in his marriage. The effect was so convincing that the Irish novelist George Moore wrote after Manet's death: "Those who knew Manet well cannot look without pain upon this picture; it is something more than a likeness; it is as if you saw the man's ghost."10 The French portrait painter Jacques-Emile Blanche agreed: "It was alive, it was the man I had known." 11 These studies of the other artist show how conscious Degas was of the expressive possibilities of the body. He rendered it solidly and firmly so that its relationship to the ground was secure and so that the positions it assumed could be revealing. From a sentence in an 1869 notebook it is clear that Degas thought more naturally in its terms than of the head for he wrote: "make portraits of people in familiar and typical attitudes and especially give the same choice of expression to the face that one gives to the body." 12 The variety of Manet's poses in the drawings suggest contemporary cartes-de-visite, those small photographs of sitters, full length in varied positions, which were used as calling cards after Disderi patented the technique in 1854.13 Even an attitude which Degas expressed in a notebook about the time he painted the portrait of the Manets, "There is sometimes a certain ease in awkwardness which, if I am not mistaken, is more gracious than the grand manner," 14 could have been stimulated by photography. Whatever its sources, it was this interest in the natural, even awkward, movements of the human body which made Degas' painting of Manet seem so alive to their friends. Mme Manet was probably as convincing as her husband, but it may have been too frank a portrait of a woman for whom we have only her husband's word that she was beautiful and whom Berthe Morisot jealously called "fat Suzanne"; 15 her husband, who accepted the painting as a gift from Degas, disliked it so much that he cut off the right third of the picture, including her profile. Degas described the incident later to the dealer, Vollard.

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Degas: I had a fearful shock when I saw it like that at his house. I picked it up and walked off without even saying good-bye. When I reached home I took down the little still-life he had given me, and sent it back to him with a note saying: "Sir, I am sending back your Plums." Vollard: But you made up with Manet afterwards, didn't you? Degas: Oh, no one can remain at outs long with Manet. 16

Although Degas never repaired the damaged work as he had intended, what remains of Mme Manet's back seems convincingly descriptive nevertheless. Manet himself, a year or so later, used Degas' scheme of a profile view of Mme Manet at the piano for a portrait of her which is now in the Louvre. The informality of this double portrait had not yet been equaled in Degas' career. The horizontality of the original canvas was more relaxed than the vertical shape of either portrait of the Morbillis (plates 38 and 39). Nor was the simple gray background wall broken up by vertical strips, which, in the Morbilli portraits, increase the tension; space surrounds the figure so easily that it can absorb the energetic diagonal of Manet's body and still seem free from formal stresses. Even the light in the room is gentle and quiet if full of subtle gradations. For the setting Degas chose the fewest essential elements to indicate the character of that sitting room. There had to be a piano for Mme Manet and a sofa upon which Edouard could recline. The shapeless, overstuffed contours of that white sofa and one red cushion, quite different from the formal settee of the portrait of the Morbillis in the National Gallery, do indicate the casual comfort of the Manet home. Finally the figures are not posed as even The Bellelli Family is posed; instead they are occupied. Every muscle of Mme Manet's back seems to be concentrated on her playing. Manet, physically restless, his eyebrows staccato points, is trying to listen (one of Manet's friends wrote that "Edouard, who had hardly any taste for music, was bored by it"). 17 They are drawn together in a normal everyday situation as the Morbillis are not. In studying the Manets' marriage Degas had found one quite unlike the introverted relationships within the De Gas family circle. Most of the troubles with M. and Mme Manet apparently lay on the surface. Manet enjoyed pretty women and was attractive to them; his wife must have been disturbed occasionally when Berthe Morisot and Eva Gonzales (whom Mme Morisot had assured Berthe had grown ugly when she described that evening at the Manets in 1871) were so openly jealous of him. However, his friend de Nittis assures us that "Faithful, he was certainly, in spite of all appearances"18 and also adds that Mme Manet could joke about his flirtations. Their union had been an irregular one from which a son was born in 1852 when the painter was only twenty; it was eleven years before his father's death permitted Manet to marry. When he did he told Baudelaire

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it was because his wife was "beautiful, very good and a very great musician."19 Certainly he loved her, as one part of a letter to her during the siege of Paris makes clear: I spent a long time, my dear Suzanne, hunting your photograph. I finally found the album on the drawing room table and was able to look several times at your good face. Tonight I woke up thinking I heard your voice calling me. I very much wish I could see you again at this moment; time is passing very slowly for me. 20

The composition of the painting, with Manet's restless body resolved against the more solid form of his wife, was appropriate for a portrait of this stable pair; the whole work was a happy and lively interpretation of a marriage, the last portrait of this subject Degas was to paint for forty years.21 In writing about another evening at the Manets in 1871, Mme Morisot told her daughter Edma that: "La Loubens spent the evening being amiable to M. Degas."22 Berthe herself, in describing the opening of the 1869 Salon to the same sister had written: "Monsieur Degas seemed happy, but guess for whom he forsook me—for Madame Lisle and Madame Loubens. I must admit that I was a little annoyed when a man whom I consider to be very intelligent deserted me to pay compliments to two silly women." 23 These two women, who were friends of the Manets, were often at the evenings at the Manet household, and it was probably such an occasion Degas intended to suggest in painting a portrait of them (plate 68), which is now in the Art Institute of Chicago. Degas placed Mme Lisle and Mme Loubens in positions which characterize the differences in their responses to the same situation. Mme Lisle folds her arms in front of her and tilts back to balance her heavy body on a small drawing room chair. Originally, as the pastel preparatory drawing of her head in the Metropolitan shows (plate 67), Degas intended to have her looking sweetly into the distance. In the painting, however, he sharpened and darkened her gentle eyes, which he had described on the drawing as "clear and gray-green" lifted her eyebrows and accented her sensitively painted mouth so that she, like Mme Loubens, looks directly at us; however, in the slant of her body and in the lift of her head, she is somewhat withdrawn and even skeptical. Mme Loubens, whom Mme Morisot had described as "making herself pleasant to M. Degas," leans forward with her hands clasped at her knee as if she were listening but somewhat sadly and even vacantly. The two women may be contrasted but are also drawn together in the naturalness of their positions in relation to each other and in their concentration upon someone else, presumably the susceptible M. Degas. Although Degas changed his mind about the background of the portrait of Mme Lisle and Mme Loubens and never finished it, the rich reds and greens of the painting do give a definite sense of light and shadow. Degas at this time wrote

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in a notebook: "Work a great deal with the effects of evening, lamps, candles, etc. The provocative thing is not to show the source of light but the effect of light." 24 As M. Lemoisne has already discerningly suggested,25 it is a portrait of another member of the Manet group, Mme Camus, which seems to illustrate this sentence; this is the version (plate 66) which was exhibited at the Salon of 1870 and is now in the Chester Dale collection in the National Gallery in Washington. Mme Camus was the wife of a physician of whom Degas had painted a straightforward portrait,26 and she too was an accomplished musician. Apparently Degas had been a close friend of theirs because he wrote at the time of Dr. Camus' funeral: "For some years I hadn't seen him. I found myself with a certain emotion in that house where I had so often gone as a friend." 2 7 Degas had already painted a portrait of Mme Camus (plate 65), which had been rejected at the Salon of 1869, although it seems, of all his works, most nearly a Salon piece. For this he made, as he tended to do at this time, several studies28 —of her dress, the wrinkles in her sleeves, the piano, the shadows cast by a figurine against the wall, the elaborate mirror, the table covered with music, the patterned cushion at her feet. He also drew her whole body and made a pastel of her head. Finally he painted her in the setting he had studied, presumably the home he was to visit nostalgically later, as if she had turned from her piano with her right hand still resting on the keys. Mme Camus, although not pretty, appears to have been more delicately formed than the other women at the Manets'. Her black dress, with its blue bow, is smarter and, with its deep neckline, more revealing than the modest garments the other women wore. With her brows slightly raised, her eyes black, her mouth partly open, she seems enchantingly responsive and alert. In Degas' second portrait of Mme Camus his interest in atmospheric effects is more apparent. Indeed, his good friend Duranty, in his review of the Salon of 1870, objected that Degas had sacrificed Mme Camus to the painting of the wall. 29 And yet, in spite of the pulsating red of that wall, the black and gold of the blackamoor, the chintz of the stool, the pink and white lamp, and the suggestion of heat which makes Mme Camus' fan seem necessary, Mme Camus is not subordinated and may even gain in provocative charm by being discovered in the shadow. Again she is made feminine by her red dress and Degas' tantalizing use of light. It is not difficult to see, as she sits forward in her chair with something of the eagerness she showed in the other painting, why she should have charmed young Tiburce Morisot. Even as Degas described her as an older woman at the time of her husband's funeral, she seemed responsive and alert. He wrote: " I found his poor wife full of grief and energy. She makes decisions in the most forceful way." 80

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27

Another painting of one of the group at the Manets was of Yves GobillardMorisot, Berthe's sister (plate 64). The Morisot correspondence describes the processes by which the portrait was produced. On May 1 1 , 1869, Berthe wrote Edma: "Yves has certainly made a conquest of Monsieur Degas. He asked her to permit him to paint a portrait of her." 3 1 On May 23 Mme Morisot added, "Do you know that Monsieur Degas is mad about Yves' face, and that he is doing a sketch of her ? He is going to transfer to the canvas the drawing that he is doing in his sketchbook. A peculiar way of doing a portrait." 32 Berthe wrote later, "Monsieur Degas has made a sketch of Yves, that I find indifferent." 33 Their mother wrote: Monsieur Degas took up her last moments here. That original came on Tuesday; this time he took a big sheet of paper and set to work on the head in pastel. H e seemed to be doing a very pretty thing, and drew with great skill. H e asked me to give him an hour or two during the day yesterday; he came to lunch and stayed the whole day. H e seemed to like what he had done and was annoyed to tear himself away from it. H e really works with ease for all this took place amidst the visits and the farewells that never ceased during these two days. 34

Finally Yves wrote herself on June 26: "The drawing that Degas made of me in the last two days is really very pretty, both true to life and delicate . . . I doubt if he can transfer it on to canvas without spoiling it." 3 5 When the pastel (plate 62) was exhibited at the Salon, Berthe changed her mind about its quality and wrote, "his masterpiece is the portrait of Yves in pastel"; 36 this is the study of her head for the painting which is now in the Metropolitan Museum. As Mme Morisot reported, Degas had followed his habit of making several studies before producing the final work in his studio. One of these (plate 63) reveals what a drawing for the portrait of Mme Lisle and Mme Loubens also does,37 that Degas used the head as a unit for squaring his drawing, and then exploited several of the lines from this process in the painting, for example in the horizontals of the couch and the verticals of the jamb at the right of her profile. Although this framework does give the composition a sense of formal order, it is external to the figure, which still unobtrusively dominates the portrait. The thin and almost monochromatic painting which emerged from such studies seems unfinished, but as if Degas had stopped at the moment he felt he had suggested the reticence of Yves Gobillard-Morisot. Finally there is a portrait of Degas' father listening to the guitarist and tenor Pagans (plate 58) as he might have done on the 14th of July evening Mme Morisot described. Pagans was Spanish, had made his debut at the Opéra in i860, and by 1865 was a popular favorite in Paris. Degas must have known him quite well, since his brother René wrote to his wife in New Orleans in 1872: "Yester-

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day I had dinner at Edgar's with Pagans who sings to the accompaniment of a guitar. Achille will tell you about him." 38 In painting his father with Pagans, Degas depended upon their bodies but even more upon their hands and heads. With a triangular composition as a focal point for the painting, he draws our attention to Pagans' fingers plucking the strings of the guitar and M. De Gas' held quietly and almost inertly. Essentially the same differences can be found in their heads but rendered more explicitly; Pagans and Auguste De Gas are contrasted in age, in coloring, in vitality, and in their social roles. Whereas Pagans' eyebrows are twisted, his nostrils sharpened, his mouth opened, his eyes deep and remote as he eloquently concentrates upon that song, M. De Gas can only raise his eyebrows and smile a little as he listens. And yet the younger Pagans, although he is in the forefront of the picture, does not dominate it. Degas arranged the two figures upon a diagonal so that his father is placed considerably behind Pagans and, as a result, is smaller; however, all the important diagonal movements converge upon him—the line of the grand piano, Pagans' chair, and particularly his guitar. There is also an open sheet of music on the piano behind his head, which draws our eyes there immediately. Since M. De Gas holds his own against the musician, the two are equally juxtaposed without destroying the apparently informal effect of the painting. Although they do not look at each other they are united by the composition and by the atmosphere of the room, produced by color, particularly the terra cotta of the wall, and by the paint, which is handled dryly enough in certain areas that the underpainting emerging through it suggests a softened light.39 The interest which Degas took in portraying someone in his natural environment can be seen in a charming drawing (plate 56) of his niece Célestine Fevre (daughter of Marguerite De Gas Fevre) in a nightshirt in her bath. Degas made the drawing still more immediate by writing on it the event, "listening, in her bath, to a story told by the maid Mimi," and the precise date, December 24,1867. We even know the place—the Fevre apartment at 72 blvd. Malesherbes, Paris. One friend, who went to the Manets but whom Degas did not paint in a drawing room, was Désiré Dihau, a musician and a brother of Marie Dihau, of whom Degas painted a charming portrait at her piano (plate 61). He apparently considered it more of a challenge to paint Désiré playing his bassoon in an orchestra which he, Degas, largely invented (plate 60).40 The differences between these men are most apparent in their faces, which Degas emphasized as much in the late sixties as at any point in his career; but the bodies are also suggested in the tilt of a head, a glimpse of a shoulder or hand. The activity in this painting could be distracting, for not only do the musicians perform upon their various instruments, looking in many directions and revealing many emotions, but above them

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the pink and turquoise ballerinas dance. With this goes a lively play of lights and darks, and linear movements which could have produced complete visual anarchy. Degas stabilized it, however, by the lines of the harp, the cello, and the bassoon, which provided an inverted triangle of order; the arm of the bass viol, which interrupts the dancers so that they cannot distract us; certain areas of relief like the wall to the left of the stage, the back of a chair, and the edge of the pit. The figure who appropriately produces the most order is Désiré Dihau, whose portrait, after all, this principally is. He is somewhat larger than the others, is placed closer to us, and his arms are spread out so that he occupies most of the picture plane. We see only part of the orchestra; obviously it extends to the right, in the direction in which Goufïé, at the bass, is looking, and to the left of the cellist Pillet. Even the orchestra members we do see hide one another so that only part of a head, like Gard's white one, may be visible. Degas used the frame so arbitrarily that he decapitated the ballerinas on the stage with a daring for which little precedent exists except in Daumier's lithograph L'Orchestre (plate 59) of 1852.41 It is pleasant to think that, in a period in which caricatures of paintings were a common feature of the public press, the process could have been reversed and something constructive have come out of the cartoon. Daumier's composition is obviously the basis for Degas', and it shows the same separation between stage and orchestra, although Daumier exaggerates it with a yawn. Degas' painting, which is, of course, serious in comparison with the lithograph, is also more complicated and more insistent upon space beyond the picture plane. Although Degas loved subjects from the theater like The Orchestra, he never dramatized his sitters; the members of the orchestra are prosaic men Degas knew, neither heroes nor villains. They wear dull black suits, and assume ordinary positions and expressions; even the light and the handling of paint hardly romanticize them. Degas does not even dramatize himself; his small strokes are primarily descriptive, and our awareness of Degas is lost as we absorb an awkward shoulder line or a rather bumpy bald head. Our eyes even jump awkwardly in space. In spite of a theatrical subject like The Orchestra, Degas' paintings seem pedestrian, quite in keeping with the realism of the nineteenth century. How photographic is this painting? The choice of subject, Degas' detachment, the arbitrary framing are consistent with photography. He even focused on the orchestra, leaving the ballerinas in the background indistinct. The kind of photography which could record such a scene did not, of course, exist at the time,42 but even if Degas were only anticipating photographic developments rather than being influenced by them, the photographic character of The Orchestra does show how fundamentally representational his work could be. He

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was intent upon recording what he saw without too much emphasis or apparent selection. There is a naturalism implicit here in his detached acceptance of reality and his satisfaction with the external and visible.43 There are several questions to be asked about Degas' portraiture from 1865 to 1871. One is the extent to which his work represented a break with traditional portrait painting in France at this period. His portrait of Mme Gaujelin (plate 55), which he exhibited at the Salon in 1869, seems to be one of his more conservative works and one which would most easily suggest the possible influence of both Ingres and Courbet. In painting Josephine Gaujelin, who was a minor dancer at the Opéra and not a member of the Manet circle (indeed Berthe Morisot didn't recognize her when this portrait was exhibited at the Salon),44 Degas showed how the bones in her face (the arch of the nose, the brows, the jaw) were delicately and precisely formed. The fineness and clarity of her features and hands, the strong contrasts of lights and darks, the decisive shapes, even the red Paisley shawl, are reminiscent of an Ingres—say the larger portrait of Mme Leblanc (plate 54), which Degas eventually owned. However, although both portraits are similarly straightforward and direct, Mme Leblanc is relaxed, the position of her body arranged to produce graceful contours and to reveal the magnificent curves of her shoulders and neck, whereas Mme Gaujelin is rigid and compressed, swaddled to the chin in her black dress, her arms held close to her sides, her hands folded on her lap. And whereas Mme Leblanc sits flirtatiously enigmatic, with a welcoming glow on her face, Mme Gaujelin, with her thin austere upper lip, the dark eyes weighted down at the corners, a certain awareness in the brows, seems cold and calculating; she even twists her exquisite thumbs with formidable deliberation. There is an unromantic realism here which Ingres never possessed. On the other hand, this realism of Degas' is not the same as Courbet's. Courbet could paint a flirtatious hostility, for example in his portrait of Mme Charles Maquet,45 but never with the suggestion of a finely taut, highly bred nervous system like Mme Gaujelin's. The refined sensibility of Degas' realism was almost more disturbing than Courbet's vulgarity. Berthe Morisot wrote her sister Edma about the 1869 Salon: Monsieur Degas has a very pretty little portrait of a very ugly woman in black, with a hat and a cashmere falling from her shoulders . . . it is very subtle and distinguished. 46 . . . Monsieur Degas seemed greatly pleased with his portrait... H e came and sat beside me, pretending that he was going to court me but this courting was confined to a long commentary on Solomon's proverb, " W o m a n is the desolation of the righteous." 4 7

Was it Degas' reputed misogyny that made his portrait of Mme Gaujelin so forbidding that she, with her fine features, could seem to Berthe Morisot to be

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"extremely ugly"? He was certainly, as Yves Morisot described her portrait, "frank" in painting women, but he could also be very much aware of their charms, as he was in painting Mme Camus. He was not, to be sure, a sensualist like Ingres; even the line of Mme Camus' throat cannot match the many seductive contours in an Ingres portrait. But he could take Mme Gaujelin and in another portrait (plate 53) of her head transform her into an enchanting, appealing woman, whose dark eyes sparkle, whose brows appear flirtatious, and whose mouth is red and smilingly mobile. Her spirit more than her flesh, however, seemed to delight him. Another woman Degas presumably liked was Mile Dubourg, whom he painted (plate 50) in 1866, before she became Mme Fantin-Latour. She was a member of the Manet circle, whom Berthe Morisot resented when Fantin's attention was transferred from Berthe to her.48 Degas painted her as sturdily built, uncomplicated in her movements, sensibly and for 1866 conservatively dressed in dull greenish brown, her hair simple, her face intelligent and wholesome. Like Mme Gaujelin she sits, but, instead of withdrawing from us, she leans forward naturally to us, her face happily responsive. Something of the differences between the two women can be seen in the preparatory drawings of their hands—Mile Dubourg's (plate 51) as solid and straightforward as she seems herself, Mme Gaujelin's (plate 52) more delicately formed and withdrawn across the page. Mile Dubourg and her background may be largely brown, but this is relieved by a little fresh green around her neck, the bouquet of lilacs, and some color worked into the wall—all building up to the warm flesh tones of her face. This portrait by Degas is finally, curiously, a far warmer and healthier image of her49 than the wan impression Fantin gave in painting her almost ten years later.50 Degas' responses to women in his portraits varied; he could be enchanted, affectionate, perceptive in a way that suggests that his reputed misogyny was an affectation. However, there is a critical detachment which is apparent in his pastel of Thérèse De Gas Morbilli (plate 57) standing in their father's drawing room, with the Perronneau pastel of a woman, which the painter owned at the time of his death, hanging on the wall. In this portrait, more clearly than in any since The Bellelli Family, Degas used the ingredients and character of the setting to build up the atmosphere of the room; all the objects seem to crowd around the figure of Thérèse, and its subdued shadows to reflect her mood. Even the rich, exotic color seems oppressive. As she stands leaning upon the mantel, obviously a visitor, she appears reflective, unhappy—more than that, somehow hostile as she looks in our direction; this is far from the complacency of a Flandrin or an Ingres. A pleasanter portrait of a woman is Degas' earlier painting of Mme Hertel with

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Chrysanthemums (plate 44). The mood established by the bouquet of flowers and the gardens through the windows into the distance, although muted, is appealing. Mme Hertel's mouth is undefined and therefore suggestive in its contours; she seems clearly dreaming, hesitantly but happily, of a world far removed from the chrysanthemums. This portrait may show the influence of either Millet or Courbet in its composition dominated by a large mass of flowers. It is possible Degas knew Courbet's painting of a young girl arranging flowers, which Courbet had painted in 1863,51 or Millet's Girl with Flowers, which Henri Rouart had owned (although Rouart and Degas became closer friends later)52 and was inspired by either or both of them to paint this particular form of portrait. However, his form of realism did not make it necessary to have the flowers grow over a trellis with Mme Hertel working at them, as Courbet had done, nor to make her smell a bouquet, as Millet had done; rather it was the accidental but possible juxtaposition of the flowers and the woman which he found revealing. One question which must be considered in Degas' work at this period is the strength of Manet's influence upon his portrait painting.53 If we compare two paintings which in photographs seem alike, Manet's Zola of 1868 (plate 45) and Degas' Tissot of 1866 (plate 46) we find two men dressed with a certain dandified dignity, sitting in rooms which reflect the influence of Japanese art, against walls which are broken by a cubic arrangement of pictures and a canvas or a screen. Manet makes Zola part of the geometric order of the painting, an L-shape on an L-shaped chair; any departure from the tectonic order is not in Zola but in the books and cluttered papers on the desk, which seem at least as important as the man in the painting. Indeed it is because of our curiosity about the inkwell, the Goya print of Velasquez's Drinkers, the photograph of Manet's Olympia, the books including Zola's pamphlet on Manet, the Japanese print and screen, that we arrive at some conclusion about Zola; we learn little from the stiff, formal portrait of the man. The reverse is true in Degas' painting. Tissot himself, except for the easel at the right, provides the variation from the general order, and as a result it is he, twisted in his chair, leaning forward a little, looking at us directly as Zola does not, who dominates the painting. The room, even the Cranach head which Degas amusingly brings into a close relationship with Tissot's own, is subordinated to him; it tells us something about him at first glance, but it is the body and the head which tell us more. For Degas, portraiture was a concentration upon the individual and expressive character of the human body through which the lassitude, even the slight anxiety, of a man like Tissot could be revealed. For Manet this was so unimportant that it has even been suggested that his painting is more a self-portrait than a portrait of his novelist friend.64 Manet's work, which is handsomer in color than Degas' shadowed painting, is perhaps, as Odilon

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Redon wrote in La Gironde at the time it was exhibited at the Salon, "rather a still life, so to speak, than the expression of a human being." 55 In the same Salon that Manet exhibited his Portrait of Zola he showed his Woman with a Parrot (plate 47), which he had dated 1866. It seems likely that Degas had worked from the same model as Manet, Victorine Meurent, in painting his Young Girl in a Red Peignoir (plate 49). Degas' painting is simple, straightforward, unaifected, and unpretentious. The ravishing pink of Manet's gown is here a solid red. The face is more sculpturally round. Again the personality of the unassuming girl matters more than it does in Manet's painting, of which one critic wrote of the head: "it is lost in the modulations of the color scheme."56 Another work which can easily be compared with one of Manet's is Degas' Violinist and Young Woman (plate 75) which could, like Manet's Music Lesson (plate 74), exhibited in the Salon of 1870, have been painted at some musical reception at the Manet home. Degas in painting the unidentified man and the young woman with the score in her hand, contrasted his two sitters so that she is fair, lightly dressed, slim, and sits tensely on the edge of her chair, whereas he, dark, heavy, and at ease, quietly tunes his violin. Degas gave their bodies density and mass, and made them move naturally in space; there is also a sense of physical structure, of a skeleton beneath the form. Manet's two sitters, on the other hand, are summarily rendered, frontally placed, and obviously posed with contrived gestures. Their faces are a little flat and, although sensuous, blandly expressionless. Whereas Degas' background, pale and luminous, a little like sunlight, is subordinated to his sitters, Manet's dark setting is important in the pictorial relationships which mattered so much to him in the painting. Again, how Manet painted is more important than what he described. Still one cannot dismiss too rashly the possible influence of Manet upon Degas. Since he was more apt to generalize about people than Degas, his portraits were not as varied nor as complex, but he did accept as a premise a certain realism which Degas must have found stimulating. And Manet, who was a couple of years older than Degas and more experienced and more daring, must often have given Degas the moral support he needed to develop and experiment in his own way. If actual direct influence existed, it would have been largely a pictorial matter: the stronger, bolder, richer colors of certain of Degas' paintings, the lavish paint he could at times apply. Manet more probably gave Degas courage than ideas, but that daring became an important ingredient in his painting. In 1870 Degas and Manet found themselves walking together through Paris, no longer as painters, but as soldiers defending the city against the German army. When Napoleon III surrendered and the Third Republic was declared, early

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in September, 1870, Degas had volunteered, but because of his eyesight, which was already poor, he was made a lieutenant in the artillery under an old school friend, Henri Rouart, instead of entering the National Guard with Manet. In October Mme Morisot wrote to Edma: "Monsieur Degas was so affected by the death of one of his friends, the sculptor Cuvelier, that he was impossible . . . Monsieur Degas has joined the artillery, and by his own account has not yet heard a cannon go off." 5 7 Degas was to come closer to cannons before the winter ended. Manet, whom he continued to see during the siege, wrote to his wife about the conditions from which Degas also must have suffered: (October 25, 1870): Small-pox is raging, and we are reduced at the moment to 75 grams of meat per person. Milk is for the children and the ill.58 (November 19, 1870): Paris is deathly sad. Gas is beginning to disappear. . . . Paris now has butchers of cats, dogs and rats. We eat only horsemeat when we can get it.59 (December 30,1870): It is bitterly cold and there is no way to make a fire. Coal is naturally kept for cooking. And what cooking! 60 (January 15,1871): There are hardly any carriages; we are eating all the horses. No more gas; black bread, and the cannons all day and all night.61 (January 30,1871, two days after surrender): There was no way to hold on. We were dying of hunger here, and even now, are in great distress. We are all thin as nails, and I, myself, have been suffering for several days from the consequences of fatigue and malnutrition.62 Degas was in Paris to see the Prussians symbolically occupy Paris the first two days of March, but he escaped the period of the Commune and the civil war which brought it to an end, by visiting friends in Normandy. During the war Degas presumably painted little, but he was asked to paint a portrait of the Rabbi Astruc and General Mellinet (plate 69). In this small painting he returned to the convention he had used for the Bellelli and MontejasiCicerale sisters in the first half of the sixties. However, although he arranged the two men with equally little physical logic, he did give them a physical structure the earlier portraits did not possess; even with just the neck and glimpses of the shoulders Degas suggests Astruc's massive body and Mellinet's slender agility. In the inevitable comparison Degas invites between the two men, Astruc, in his handsome yellow brocade coat with its white collar, seems the more aggressive; his is a square head with eyebrows raised like inverted V's, rather full lips with the lower one jutting forward a little. Mellinet in an olive green jacket with a golden brown collar and a row of decorations, has an older face, which in its structure, which is less distinct, and in its spirituality, is like an El Greco. The one eyebrow, lifted in awareness, and the other, in thought, suggest a more complicated man. The color also emphasizes the differences between them—Melli-

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net's wisps of white hair and rather blurred blue eyes against a ruddy complexion, Astruc's vigorous black hair against paler skin. The two men are not related in any clear way and there is no setting, but one could imagine from the contours of their hair that it was windblown and from the yellow of the background and on the surfaces of their faces that there was intense sunlight; so Degas, even in this small work, provided some environment for them. This painting represents a slight break with Degas' earlier portraits in suggesting that the sitters are out of doors but even more importantly in creating with the angles of the heads, the play of light and dark, the sensually glowing color, the lively strokes of paint, a visual excitement which belongs to a painting and not to a photograph. In March, 1871, Degas painted three friends who had served with him under Henri Rouart—Jeantaud, Linet, and Laine, a portrait which he gave to Jeantaud (plate 70). The differences between these sitters, who were close to each other in age and appearance, was not as great as it was with Astruc and Mellinet, but Degas did distinguish between them while at the same time indicating their camaraderie. M. Linet is brought closest to us and given the largest area of the canvas but, with his blurred, puffy brows, petulant face, and unconcentrated gaze, he does not attract us nor hold our interest. Behind him to the left, leaning forward with his arms crossed on the table, is M. Jeantaud, whose handsome face seems attractive but too self-absorbed to hold our attention long. Furthest back, stuck in a corner to the right, is M. Laine, who seems to lean back on his chair with the kind of physical energy Manet would have displayed. His position is casual, his expression keen, receptive, and amused, so that although he is furthest from us he demands our attention as much as the other two. By these devices Degas divides our interest among the three men. This portrait gives a sense of expressively animated space, although it is actually three-dimensionally somewhat incoherent. It is presumably unfinished, which may help explain the fact that it is not too logical spatially, but it is also possible that Degas was working interpretatively with planes and was willing to sacrifice clarity to them. M. Linet's body forms a plane which withdraws, M. Jeantaud's is tilted forward, M. Laine's thrust to the right at an angle. For whatever reason Degas intended, the angles of the positions of the bodies in relation to each other help unify the work and make it more interesting visually. No place in the painting is Degas very specific, but somehow, partly in terms of the men themselves, partly with light and with dark rich colors, he managed to suggest the atmosphere of a warm, smoke-filled room. This space is not an end in itself but a contribution to our understanding of his sitters; he was more interested in interpretation than in visual objectivity. In going to Normandy to rest at the end of the war, Degas seems to have found

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himself content, however, with what his eyes could see. He was visiting at MénilHubert, the house of Paul Valpinçon, who had also been a boarder at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and whose Ingresque portrait he had drawn in 1861 with his wife. 63 His friendship for the Valpinçons seems to have been comfortingly separate from his life in Paris; if he were writing even to very close friends like Rouart, Ludovic Halévy, or the sculptor Bartholomé he would find it necessary to explain where he was and with whom. To Henri Lerolle, a good friend, Degas wrote during a visit in 1884: "I must tell you that I too am near Vimoutiers, at the home of a childhood friend." 64 In all likelihood this friendship was just that, a habit from childhood, without much intellectual stimulus but with certain and constant affection from all members of Paul Valpinçon's family. The security he must have felt in the assurance of a warm welcome at Ménil-Hubert, when he was tired or convalescent, is reflected in the quiet works he produced there. One portrait Degas painted at Ménil-Hubert was of the Valpinçon infant son Henri with his nurse crouched on the grass beside his carriage (plate 71). Behind, barely visible in the distance, are his mother and his sister Hortense. The grass is so green, the color so fresh that the effect is one of intense sunlight. The bland faces of the nurse and the baby, except for a certain truculence, are too lacking in character to dominate the background; as a result it seems less a double portrait than a sunscape with people in it; we feel ourselves before a developing Impressionism. The Impressionists had not yet, of course, exhibited together, nor had they been christened, but they did know each other, and out of their casual meetings at the Café Guerbois they were finding a new and common way of approaching the world in their paintings. Degas may not have been the friendliest member of the group, but he was part of it and affected by it. His orientation had always been toward human beings rather than toward nature, but in 1869, inspired by artists like Monet and Pissarro, he had become interested in landscape painting and had made many sensitive pastels of sea and land at Saint-Valéry. The next step was one which the other Impressionists had already made: to paint portraits against such a setting, as he did in his portrait of Henri Valpinçon. If this sunlit painting is compared with similar subjects by Impressionist contemporaries like Manet or Renoir,65 it is clear how much more than they Degas was concerned with internal structure, not only in the firm modeling of the bodies but also in the very formation of the earth and the arrangement of the figures upon it. On another level the meaning of the relationships of the figures in the Degas is clearer and the interpretation of them, although subdued, is more penetrating and precise. Even at the very peak of his preoccupation with sunlight, Degas could not subordinate his interpretation of the human being in quite the same way as the other Impressionists did.

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Degas did go further, however, in this direction in his Carriage at the Races (plate 72), in which he painted an outing of the Valpingon family.66 He emphasized the accidental by the movement of his sitters and the crowd and by using the frame to bisect the carriage at the left and to cut off part of the Valpin$on horses and wheels. Surprisingly, considering its informality, the real focal point of the picture is at its center: the sleeping infant, Henri Valpin^on, held in his nurse's arms and protected from the sun by a pale golden umbrella. His mother leans over to him, and the dog and the baby's father look down from the driver's seat above. The family's concentration is so complete that they are oblivious of the sunlit world around them. Light is important, however; the colors are almost blanched by the sun, and vertical strokes of white suggest its sparkle. The Carriage at the Races in its informality, its casual composition, its suggestion of light and of the momentary would fulfill many Impressionist demands, but in seeking an equivalent for what might be seen on such an outing Degas had to sacrifice any analysis of the personalities of the members of the Valpingon household. Degas did paint one portrait at Ménil-Hubert in which there is more emphasis upon the sitter: this is the painting of the Valpingon daughter Hortense (plate 73) leaning over the end of a table with an apple in her hand. The horizontal shape of the canvas, its asymmetry, the table itself, and the use of the pattern of the wallpaper and the tapestry work in the basket and the tablecloth to break up areas of color, are reminiscent of Degas' earlier portrait of Mme Hertel beside the bouquet of chrysanthemums (plate 44). The painting of Hortense, however, seems more natural and relaxed. The broken areas of color are not as many nor as vibrantly active; indeed they are blended in certain crucial places around the figure of Hortense, whose white dress is more effective in suggesting light. There is also more space around the little girl so that her movements are easy, whereas Mme Hertel's existence in the space in her painting is, like her actions, compressed and confined. Finally Hortense's position, with her back toward us, raising her arms and her head in slight surprise because she has presumably become aware of us, is a natural and psychologically not very significant one. The painting curiously has almost a classical quality in the orderly pyramidal composition (the tapestry balances the diagonal of Hortense's body), in the radiant area of white in her dress, in the lack of any restriction or strain, and in the serene beauty of the little girl's face. This visual satisfaction and calm may show the influence of Manet or perhaps simply reflect Degas' own contentment at Ménil-Hubert. During these years Degas had begun to age. Mme Morisot had pointed out in July, 1871, that he seemed older than her husband. Almost a year later René wrote to his wife in New Orleans about his thirty-eight-year-old brother: "At the station I found Edgar who has grown older, some white hairs streak his beard...

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Unhappily he has very weak eyes, he is forced to take the greatest care of them."67 Degas' bad eyesight seems to have been aggravated by his period in the artillery, and his complaints about his sight run through his letters for the rest of his life. It may have been partly for both relaxation and distraction that Degas decided to go to New Orleans with René in October 1872. René was the member of the De Gas family who had been most affected by the visit of the Mussons to France in 1863; 68 indeed, he had insisted on returning with them in 1865 to his mother's birthplace, where there was some property the De Gas children had inherited from her. A year later he came back to raise money in Paris, largely from his father's bank, and perhaps to persuade his twenty-eightyear-old brother Achille (René was only twenty-one) to return with him to become his partner in the business he wanted to establish there. In the short period he was home his widowed cousin Estelle Musson Balfour, with whom he must have fallen in love on her trip to France, fell ill and became hopelessly blind in August of that year. René and Achille returned to New Orleans, founded De Gas Frères, Importers of Wines, and René married Estelle on July 17,1869, in spite of the need for special dispensation and over her father's strong objections. By the time the painter arrived in New Orleans Estelle and René had had two children of their own and were expecting a third; there was also Estelle's daughter by her first marriage, Joe Balfour. They were living with Michel Musson, whose wife had died that year, and Désirée Musson, who had never married. In New Orleans Degas painted the picture which, more than any other, seems a summing up of his naturalism at this time; this is The Cotton Market (plate 80), the first of his paintings to be bought by a public museum. It is a group portrait of the people connected with the cotton business of his uncle, Michel Musson. Within the bare, bright room, with offices behind the glass partitions at the left, buyers bargain, accountants work at their ledgers, and Degas' uncle examines cotton in a preoccupied fashion with skillful hands. In some respects The Cotton Market is a family portrait because diagonally behind M. Musson, who sits in the front, are his two sons-in-law, his nephew René, married to Estelle, and William Bell, the husband of Mathilde, the daughter who did not go to France in 1863. René is reading the daily newspaper, while Mr. Bell shows cotton to a skeptical visitor. In addition there is also another nephew, Achille de Gas, who leans rather lackadaisically against the sill of the partition at the far left of the painting. However, Degas was not as concerned with family relationships as with the business as a whole. The Cotton Market represents Degas' interest in an almost photographic accuracy at this time; he must have studied each detail. He was presumably careful

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about likenesses, as the variety of physical types suggest, and as a photograph of M. Musson, which Mr. Rewald published,69 proves. In order to describe the person more completely he studied appropriate mannerisms, and so he painted his uncle looking over his spectacles just as he had written about him in a letter from New Orleans to Désiré Dihau; 70 the way M. Musson fingers the cotton must have been equally characteristic. He used the proportions, positions, and movements of the bodies to show the differences between the men so that the slim, dapper, mustached Mr. Bell is convincingly agile as he holds the light cotton out to his companion, who, on the other hand, supports himself by leaning heavily upon the table. Our glimpse of the interior seem accidental because no one looks toward us; certain figures, like the bookkeeper and M. Musson, are preoccupied; and, even in the office beyond, the men are completely absorbed in their own affairs. Degas was characteristically concerned with the quality of the light within this room. He had been overwhelmed by the sunlight of New Orleans and had written to Henri Rouart: "The light is so strong that I have not been able to do anything on the river yet." He added: "Manet, more than I, would see beautiful things here." 71 However, the intensity of that light, even if he could not face it out of doors, seeped into whatever he painted. Certainly he makes one feel that the interior of the cotton market, with its pale yellow-green walls and yellowbrown floor, is a cool oasis from it. He implies its brilliance through the door at the back, the window jamb at the left, and the roughened white impasto of the cotton. The effect of this picture, even more than of The Orchestra, is of a completely dispassionate rendering of a milieu in which each person plays a role independently of the others in his habitual casual fashion. It is true that his brothers are conspicuously indolent, but Degas does not seem to have been making any commentary upon them. One writer, who had not identified the two men, felt that their apparent disinterest was feigned.72 Mr. Rewald has apologized for them by pointing out that they are not in their own place of business but are visiting their uncle's.73 From Degas' letters one would gather that he was proud of his brothers : "Achille and René are partners"; he wrote, "I am writing to you on their office paper. They are not doing badly here and are in a situation which is truly remarkable at their age. They are loved and respected and I am very proud of them." 74 It would be inconsistent with the character of the work, and we would be reading into it our knowledge of the eventual bankruptcy of De Gas Frères, if we presumed that the painter were making some moral or social point about their lack of participation in the scene, except perhaps as visual accents by which we can measure the activity of the others.75 René and Achille are the only two of

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the fourteen people Degas recorded upon a small canvas without permitting any one of them to assert himself. He disassociated himself from the group spatially and by implication emotionally by seeming to look down upon them through a window (we can see a jamb and a shutter at the left) ; in spite of the informal character of the work, that spatial organization provides some kind of order with the diagonal of the figures receding rapidly into the distance, balanced by the vertical shelves and the bookkeepers at the right. Can The Cotton Market be described as an Impressionist painting ? There are certain ways, of course, in which it can and in which it was appropriately exhibited even in the second Impressionist exhibition. It could illustrate Pissarro's advice to a young painter much later: "The eye should not be fixed on one point but should take in everything"; 76 we find what Degas could have seen without any obvious emphasis or selection. Just as we realize that the limits of the picture are those of Degas' own field of vision, we are made aware that he is only recording a moment; through the gestures and actions of the men we know the scene will change. Besides this desire for an unemphasized recording of something seen and the momentary aspect of it, Degas was also interested in light. However, unlike developed Impressionism, he was describing reality rather than finding through formal means an equivalent for his visual experience with it. The Cotton Market was not the only portrait Degas painted in New Orleans. He wrote from there on November 27,1872: I work little, it is true, but on some difficult things. Some family portraits. One has to make them enough to the family's taste, in impossible light, everything upset, with the models full of affection but a little without shame and taking you much less seriously because you are their nephew or cousin.—I have just failed with a large pastel and am somewhat mortified. 77

M. Lemoisne believes 78 the pastel is one (plate 79) of a young woman with a fan on a balcony, for which Degas made a preparatory pencil drawing which he inscribed "nouvelles Orléans, 72, Degas" 7 9 and a pastel head which he dated 1873.80 He identifies her as Estelle Musson de Gas, René's wife, but her eyes seem too alive and responsive to be those of the painter's blind sister-in-law. I think that, since she resembles the other Musson women, she may be the youngest sister Mathilde, Mrs. William Bell, the only one not to go to France in 1863. It is a portrait of considerable charm in which the light seems more important than her character; Degas might consciously have made this to his family's taste. The same could be said of one of his paintings of Estelle,81 the one in the Chester Dale collection in Washington (plate 78). Her black spotted, pale gray dress against a muted pink ground is so charming that we ignore the squatness of the body and the squareness of her bewildered face. Perhaps in painting his

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sister-in-law, whose blindness he suggested reticently and tenderly in the blank eyes, Degas wanted the picture to be as ravishingly beautiful as a Manet, such as the 1868 portrait, now in the Louvre, of Léon Leenhofî reading to Mme Manet, for the light and the handling of paint have something of the quality of this work if reduced to a shell-like shimmer. The two other portraits Degas painted of Estelle are, however, more disturbing and not so complacently satisfied with the thing seen as his New Orleans portraits tend to be. One shows Estelle, her face partly in shadow, at one end of a table arranging flowers (plate 77). The meeting of the planes of the body and the table suggest the delicate physical balance we so often observe in the blind, a balance which the hands even more subtly emphasize. Unlike the similarly shaped portraits of Mme Hertel and Hortense Valpinçon, Estelle seems isolated and penned in by the table, which forms a barrier between her and us. In the third portrait of her (which may be earlier than the Chester Dale painting), the Femme à la Potiche (plate 76),82 she is even more enclosed by the objects around her. Her face is curiously enigmatic and unrevealing, but the straight body, hemmed in by the chair, the table, and the flowers, the left hand clutched on her lap, and particularly, almost as the focal point of the painting, the four sensitive fingers pressed against the chair back (much more responsive than the eyes), indicate her blindness. The painting is not lacking in pictorial qualities. The color is exotic: the jade green wall, the blue tablecloth, the purple blue of the vase, and the warm orange-red of the flowers, all more subtly rich and varied than any verbal description would convey, surround the figure of Estelle, whose almost colorless high-keyed cream dress suggests light entering a cool room in a positive way. But even in our response to the color we are led to the quiet but disturbing figure of Estelle. It is as if Degas, who had been so moved by his cousin when he had met her as a widow in France and who felt even more compassionate toward her when he found her suffering from the blindness he was afraid threatened himself, was aroused by her to paint portraits emotionally more probing than any he had done since the beginning of the war. Degas' portraits painted between 1865 and 1873 make us participants, as if we were listening to Mme Manet and Pagans, talking to Mme Loubens, watching Désiré Dihau in the orchestra, wandering by the Valpinçon carriage at the races, relaxing with Jeantaud, Linet, and Lainé, or casually dropping in at the Cotton Market. The relationships he suggests to us or of the sitters to each other in a group portrait seem to be the casual ones of chance, rather than the more meaningful ones which endure. Our experience with these paintings is therefore similarly casual, even deceptively easy, quite different from the earlier paintings, which are formally and expressively composed for our interpretation. Often, particularly in the paintings done at Ménil-Hubert and in New Orleans, Degas

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limited himself to what the eye could easily see, what was external if not necessarily superficial. Having gone this far in this direction, which seems consistent with developing Impressionism, he changed in the next period to more selective and subjective interpretations of the human being.

CHAPTER THREE

1874-1884

Although periods may be an artificial way of breaking up an artist's career and their limits must be arbitrary, there is some foundation for making Degas' second period begin in 1865, his third in 1874, and a fourth in 1884.1865 had been a critical year for Degas, when he first exhibited at the Salon, showing the last of his historical works, Les Malheurs de la Ville d'Orléans} His sister Marguerite had married an architect, Henri Fevre, and his brother René had gone to New Orleans, to be followed by Achille the next year. Since Thérèse had already married and was living in Italy, he was left alone with his father and they became closer friends. The period begun in 1865 seems to have been a happy, sociable time for Degas, in which he found others who felt somewhat about painting as he did and during which he exhibited annually at the Salon. With the war and his worsening eyesight, and with the trip to New Orleans, the period came, however, to an unhappy or at least indecisive end. Degas himself wrote to Henri Rouart from Paris in 1873: "How my last good years are disappearing into mediocrity." 2 1874, the year Degas reached forty, represented as sharp a break as 1865 had done. Edmond de Goncourt had visited him on February 13 and had written in his journal: A n original fellow this Degas, inclined to be sickly, neurotic, concerned with his eyes to the point that he believes he will lose his eyesight, but even because of this an extraordinarily sensitive person who is aware of the contradictory character of things . . . Now will he ever realize something which is quite complete? I do not know. He seems to me a very restless spirit.3

Ten days after de Goncourt's visit, Degas' father died in Naples (the painter had been called to Turin in October because his father had fallen ill there), and Degas' private world collapsed around him.

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With his father's death the family firm faced bankruptcy, largely because René had borrowed heavily from his father's bank to start his business in New Orleans.4 Their uncle Henri Musson wrote to his brother Michel in New Orleans on December 10,1875: "You know from René of the closing down of his father's firm . . . You must urge René to make honorable arrangements with his family to help them, by remittances three times a year, to fulfill the promises that will be made. He has a large d e b t . . . " 6 Achille, who had come back from New Orleans to try to help, wrote to his uncle Michel on August 31,1876: A s for us, you know the condition in which our father's firm was placed at the time of his death; only on credit have I been able to support an enormous uncovered balance during two years, but that credit is at last exhausted . . . W e are obliged, Edgar, Marguerite and I, to live altogether on a bare subsistence, in order to honor the promises w e have made. 6

Henri Musson wrote in January, 1877, that Edgar and Henri were having great difficulty meeting the monthly installments on their loans.7 In March Edgar apologized to the singer Faure because he had not finished some pictures for him: "I would have finished your pictures a long time ago if I did not have to produce something every day to earn some money. You cannot doubt the irritations of every kind which are overwhelming me." 8 Degas was sufficiently humiliated by this situation, which had made him in his forties dependent for the first time on the sale of his pictures, to break off later with George Moore because Moore mentioned it in an article,9 but it may have been less important to him finally than the changes that took place within the De Gas family circle. He felt close to Achille, who had stood by him, and obligated to Marguerite's husband, Henri Fevre, who had assumed legal responsibilities which were not actually his. René, the younger brother, had disappointed them; he tried to escape the responsibilities of a failing business, the enormity of his debts, a blind wife, a stepdaughter, and five children of his own by eloping from New Orleans, getting a divorce in January, 1879, and marrying again. Although René returned to France, the painter refused to see him for almost twenty years; and it was Achille who had to go back to New Orleans to see what he could salvage of René's business there. Fortunately this period was professionally happier for Degas, although it had its estrangements too. 1874 was the year of the first of the exhibitions of the group of independent artists soon to be known as Impressionists. Degas, who wrote to Tissot that "In the realist movement we need no longer fight one another. It is, it exists, it ought to show itself apart, it ought to have a Realist Salon," 10 was an enthusiastic supporter of the first six exhibitions of Impressionists, in 1874,1876, 1877,1879,1880, and 1881; he missed only the seventh in 1882. Nevertheless, al-

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though in exhibiting with this group Degas could feel part of a movement, it did mean some estrangement from Manet, who continued to submit paintings to the Salon and of whom Degas had written in the same letter to Tissot, "Manet does not understand this." 1 1 Their ways became so different that, when Manet was defending official decorations, Degas turned on him suddenly and said, "I didn't realize until this moment just how bourgeois you are." 1 2 Although Degas withdrew from the group around the Manets, perhaps partly because his father, who had also been their friend, was dead, he did have other close friends who understood his work: Edmond Duranty, the novelist and critic; Ludovic Halévy, the playwright; and Alexis and Henri Rouart, brothers who were collectors and, like Halévy, had been at school with Degas. Degas, who had written to Henri Rouart from New Orleans: "Some children by me and for me. Is that also too much P N o , " 1 3 may in a sentimental bachelor way have envied his married friends their easy and close relationships with their daughters, for in this period Degas painted three portraits of fathers and daughters or wards. One of these is of Henri Rouart himself with his only daughter, Hélène (plate 87). Rouart, his school friend and captain of his artillery unit during the war, was an engineer and industrialist (Degas had painted one portrait of him in front of the smokestacks of his factories), 14 a collector and amateur painter (one of his landscapes hangs behind him and Hélène in Degas' painting). Although in the double portrait Henri's daughter is on his knee and their bodies form a solid reversed L which the very darkness of M. Rouart's suit makes more stable, Hélène's head is partly shadowed and unhappily bewildered and her father clasps his left hand in a way which makes it clear that he is not as placid as he might otherwise seem. Degas, however, suggests that any unhappiness they might feel would be ephemeral whereas their intimacy, with the father's right hand grasping his daughter's, would remain constant. Another of the portraits is not of a father but of a guardian and his niece (plate 86). The little girl was the painter's orphaned cousin Lucy, the daughter of Edouard De Gas, of whom he had made the early Ingresque drawing (plate 22), and her guardian, their uncle Henri De Gas, who lived in Naples. Degas placed them in positions which indicate a certain intimacy, Lucy standing behind her uncle's chair with her hands resting lightly upon it. At the same time their isolation is complete. Henri De Gas, interrupted, raises his eyes from his paper, takes his cigar out of his mouth and looks up, frowning with both humor and concern, as if he were aware of his niece behind him. She seems infinitely pathetic and subdued in her shapeless black dress, with her shoulders sloping and her head bent shyly to the right; the position of her head parallels the position of her uncle's and also continues the movement of the chair—but above all Degas uses

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it to suggest a certain hopeless if dignified resignation in a manner reminiscent, as Mr. Walker has pointed out,15 of Perugino. In this representation of a relationship which was inhibited and shy, Degas gave the whole painting a solemn character with blacks and yellows and the languid and continuous rhythms of the contours. Quite unlike the cloistered interior of the painting of the uncle and niece, with its glimpse of a mantelpiece and a table laden with books, is the background for Degas' third painting of this theme, the Place de la Concorde (plate 88).16 Here his friend, the engraver and painter, Vicomte Lepic, crosses the Paris square in one direction, whereas his two daughters and their dog move purposefully in another. None of the Lepics acknowledges each other's existence, although the dog does show some mild interest in the curious stranger who has stopped to turn and stare at this modishly dressed family. Although the fairer Janine at the left seems merely quietly pretty, her sister Eylau (was she named after one of Napoleon's battles?) holds her arms and moves with complete determination, her profile arrogant as she draws her head back proudly and purses her lips together decisively. Degas in this painting depended to a considerable extent upon the relative pressures in the human body as an actor or a dancer might. His awareness of their suggestive power, which his current studies from the ballet must have increased, was so great that he could indicate the priggish Eylau by the weight of her body and the way she lifts her chin. We, the spectators, can feel the nervous impatience of the Vicomte Lepic as he holds his left arm tensely behind his back, clutches his umbrella, and thrusts his head and his cigar upward and forward. We are made to sympathize with the man at the left as he drops his weight upon his cane and turns to watch the Lepics with some bewilderment. Mr. Rewald in the 1946 edition of his History of Impressionism effectively illustrates the Place de la Concorde beside the earlier Carriage at the Races (plate 7 2 ) B o t h works possess a triangular group of figures toward the right of the painting balanced by a large area of space behind them. Both frames cut through the picture in an arbitrary way. However, the differences are more revealing. First of all Lepic and his daughters are separated but maintained within a single plane, so that, instead of the natural grouping of the Valpingons, each figure here possesses a clearly defined silhouette. The sense of bodily mass may be lost but, instead, the pattern of the hats and the sharp accenting of Lepic's cigar against the umbrella are lively, unexpected, and even witty. In the space behind the Lepics, in contrast to the fields at Menil-Hubert, there is as little sense of solid threedimensional mass as there is in the figures; the square does not lie down but rises to a higher horizon. It will not permit us to enter the work; we must remain spectators, as detached as an audience at a comedy of manners or a pantomime.

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The Lepics are as much isolated from the square as we are; it is almost as if Degas had cut out their figures and pasted them on a separate background like a photomontage.18 Finally, although the composition is like the Carriage at the Races, it does not seem accidental, but rather contrived, for the frame leaves everything essential intact. Degas' use of composition and of physical and visual movements to suggest differences in personalities, and his lack of interest in threedimensional coordination may be significant in themselves, but more important is the fact that the individuals now emerge and dominate their environment. Degas had returned to portraiture in a purer form. In the three paintings of men and little girls, there is considerable difference between the stable affection of Henri Rouart, the ironic bewilderment of Henri de Gas, and the splendid, assumed indifference of Lepic, and between Hélène Rouart's confidence in her father, even when she is unhappy, Lucy de Gas shyly craving affection, and Janine and Eylau Lepic's apparent independence. However, Degas did point out in each case the lack of communication between these human beings, obviously and pathetically with Henri and Lucy de Gas, wittily with the Lepics, and sympathetically with the Rouarts, where, understanding as Henri is, he cannot share Hélène's momentary unhappiness. Degas makes us conscious that, even if the Lepics are at odds, they are still one, and that in all three cases environment, experience, and heredity have produced a relationship which endures. These works have a certain poignancy which may be a reflection of Degas' awareness of his celibacy at this time. They also have a strongly assertive use of visual means, in which Degas reveals complete command of a formal and expressive vocabulary. He seems to have liberated himself from the tyranny of feeling compelled to duplicate what he saw; in composing he arranged objects in space less than he distributed forms over the picture area. For example, in painting a portrait of Mme de Rutté (plate 83), the sister of two of his friends, in the studio of one of her brothers, he chose a canvas about the same size and shape as the one he had used for the portrait of Estelle Musson de Gas, the Femme à la Potiche (plate 76), and he also placed a vase of flowers on the table in front of her. He was not, however, as concerned with the definition of the background, the shape of the table, the precise sculptural form of the vase; even her body is not so fully realized, and the hands are left undone. As a result the painting's three-dimensional existence is not so forceful (nor as psychologically oppressive) as the Femme à la Potiche. At the same time the body of Mme de Rutté does seem to exist; the relationship of the ears to the head, the head to the neck, the neck to the shoulders, is most convincing although it is summarily treated. Degas found

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shapes, which, like the form of her hair, her face, and her bodice, are visually satisfying in themselves, but at the same time he made the hair asymmetrical, the sleeve of her dress drop over her right arm so that, although there is an interest in the positive beauty of such forms, Degas used them to suggest what he would earlier have described. This degree of abstraction, combined with the greater freedom with which he applied paint, makes us, as spectators, highly aware of Degas as the artist, even though we do not forget Mme de Rutte, whose intelligence uncompromisingly penetrates the painting. It may be because this portrait is so obviously a conscious work of art or even because the table runs across the whole of the picture plane and keeps us out (unlike the one in the Femme a la Potiche, which only hems in Estelle De Gas), that we seem to find our role once more that of an observer rather than a participant. This greater simplicity, suggestiveness, and interest in two-dimensional design is even more apparent in a drawing in the Metropolitan Museum of an unknown young woman, which is dated 1875 (plate 82). Unlike, say, the portrait of Mile Dubourg (plate 50) painted almost ten years earlier, the setting is merely a sofa, indicated by a cursory line or two and even more effectively by the position of her right arm. And, although this woman seems solidly formed and her dress bulky, Degas did not indicate this by drawing her in space but largely by the shape of her total silhouette, which is, at the same time, spread out so that it can, in its vigorous mass and its harsh and broken contours, have a decisive character of its own. And, unlike the earlier work, in which the composition is understated, this is meant to be immediately perceived. The anonymity of this woman is not surprising; she does not, after all, have too much individual character. But several others from this period, who are distinctive, are also anonymous. If Berthe Morisot thought Mme Gaujelin ugly, one wonders how she would have reacted to Degas' Woman with an Umbrella (plate 84), whose crooked features, heavy eyes, and severe expression are certainly more unprepossessing than Mme Gaujelin's. Here again we can feel the artist's will, working out her face completely, leaving the rest unfinished, fitting her body into a compact vertical design, making use of obvious contours, but at the same time suggesting the woman's self-discipline in the confinement of the form, her impatience in the brusque energy of the black lines and even the movement of her umbrella by some vibrating strokes of paint. Unlike the portrait of Mme de Rutte, in which there is a gentle respect for the subtlety of her personality, but like the Metropolitan portrait of the woman on the sofa, which is generalized, this characterization seems somewhat unreal. It is overstated as if she were a woman on the stage, and one wonders whether an actress might not have posed for it.

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Another small painting (and all these portraits of women are small), with this same exaggerated quality, is of an unknown sitter, a woman who is pulling on her gloves (plate 85). In making this woman lean forward so eagerly, work with her hands to fit on her leather gloves, thrust out her neck and then her chin even further, and in pointing her nose and piling her hair up above her head so that it makes a bold silhouette against the line of her back, Degas worked as positively with her body as he did with the organization of any visual abstractions. She seems, as a result of all this, a refinement of a personality, more precise and more exact than any human being could be. Degas always had a feeling for what the human body could indicate, but in this period, presumably because of his work with the ballet, he handled it more easily and more conspicuously in his portraits. Paul Valéry has written that Degas was a natural mimic and could imitate the gestures and movements of people he had only casually seen. One day he described a woman on the upper deck of a tram to Valéry: Telling me how a woman came and sat down not far away from him, he described the precautions she took to be well arranged and comfortably seated. She ran her fingers over her dress to uncrease it, contrived to sit well back so that she fitted closely into the curve of the support, drew her gloves as tightly as possible over her hands, buttoned them carefully, ran her tongue along her lips which she had bitten gently, worked her body inside her clothes, so as to feel fresh and at ease in her warm underwear. Finally' after lightly pinching the end of her nose, she drew down her veil, rearranged a curl of hair with an alert finger, and then, not without a lightning survey of the contents of her bag, seemed to put an end to this series of operations with the expression of one whose task is done, or whose mind is at rest, since all that is humanly possible in the way of preparations has been done, and the rest must be left to providence. 19

It may have been this feeling for gesture which made Degas so fond of the pantomime artist, Ellen Andrée. She sat, with Marcellin Desboutin, for one of Degas' more narrative paintings, L'Absinthe, and she also posed for at least two other works which might be considered portraits. In making an etching of her (plate 108) Degas probably let her assume a character which bore little resemblance to her own 20 and drew her disciplined body as it suggested a tiny woman, selfrespecting in her bearing and dress, but lonely, dithering in her movements, curious about things around her but wistful, as she looks up like a little bird, from under her big hat. Ellen Andrée, perhaps as much as Degas, created the woman we see, but Degas nevertheless made her personality more vivid by placing her, as he did, in the upper right-hand corner of the page and by leaving the space around her unbroken except for a few roughly horizontal strokes, so that she seems quite small and quite alone. The character of her movements comes from

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the position of her body, to be sure, but also from the flickering strokes of the pattern of the skirt against the more solid ones of the coat. And certainly her wistfulness is suggested almost tenderly by the apparently vague pale strokes of her face (plate 109), a little reminiscent, in their trenchant description, of a Goya. Degas' other portrait of her was probably made from the same drawing (the etching being reversed) ; here Mlle Andrée is one of three women consciously ignoring each other as they wait in a long line, presumably for a bus (plate n o ) , but in the upward thrust of her head and the outward thrust of her neck, her chest forward and her bustle backward, she seems comic in her self-conscious pride. (It is difficult to know which character the actress had originally intended, but certainly the etching seems the subtler one.) Here she is part of an unfinished group portrait, planned to be a study for what Degas inscribed on the canvas as "portraits in a frieze for the decoration of an apartment," and her character had to bear some relation to the other two, who seem to build up in personality from left to right, reaching a climax in hers. A t the left an unidentified woman stands simply, with the weight of her body bearing heavily down upon her umbrella. In the middle a woman, believed to be Mary Cassati, sits primly, her face a gentle smiling one. A l l three in their positions and characterizations would carry clearly from the stage, but there is not the same sense of a quiet study of a personality which the earlier portraits possessed. Degas was enchanted with certain aspects of women. He loved the exaggerated form and color of their clothes, and had from i860 at least made notes about their cut and color and materials.21 Women were altogether, in their costume and in their bearing, more splendid and picturesque than males, and there were wonderful ironies, as there is in the frieze painting of Mlle Andrée, between their presumptions and what they actually were. Georges Rivière, who met Degas about 1875 and who was a close friend of Renoir, tells us that Degas enjoyed women's company much more than Renoir did.22 One woman Degas did know well was the American painter, his fellow Impressionist, Mary Cassatt. A n undated letter exists from Degas to Lepic, asking him to find a dog for Miss Cassatt, and in it he jokingly describes her in a postscript: I believe it in good taste to warn you that the person who desires the dog is Miss Cassatt and that she has approached me since I am known for the quality of my dogs and my affection for them, which is as great as for my old friends, etc., etc. I also believe it unnecessary to give you any other information about the applicant, whom you know to be a good painter, at the moment given to studies of reflection and shadow on flesh or dresses, for which she has the greatest feeling and understanding. 23

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In addition to painting Miss Cassatt as one of the women in the frieze—a portrait which presumably resembled her as little as Mile Andree's did her—Degas made a remarkable series of her back as she visited the Louvre. 24 In the most finished of these, a pastel (plate HI), a woman sits on a bench with a catalogue in her hand, but she has turned from the booklet to watch Miss Cassatt walk by. W e can share her interest (and presumably we are expected to identify ourselves with her), since Miss Cassatt walks erectly and holds her umbrella confidently. Degas highlighted her shoulder blades so that they seem to move, and he drew the contours of her arms so that, while the left one is inert, the right has a certain power. Most of the movement is suggested by the rhythmic relationship of line itself with the diagonal of the arm and the umbrella forming a strong and isolated pivot around which the body moves. Degas' interest in the use of such abstractions is even clearer from the preparatory studies, including one squared drawing, which is also crossed by diagonals.25 The result is a masterful portrait, and for anyone who knows this pastel and the drawings or etchings, it seems, only with a back, the evocation of a personality we assume to be Miss Cassatt's. Degas painted another portrait of Miss Cassatt which became an obsession with her late in her life. Toward the end of 1912 she wrote to her (and Degas') dealer, Durand-Ruel: I particularly want to get rid of the portrait Degas made of me which is hanging in the room beside the drawing room (my studio) . . . I don't want to leave this portrait by Degas to my family as one of me. It has some qualities as a work of art but it is so painful and represents me as such a repugnant person that I would not want anyone to know that I posed for it If you think my portrait saleable I should like it sold to a foreigner and particularly that my name not be attached to it.26

On April 13,1913, she added: "I do not want the picture to go to America now. I know many collectors of Degas over there, and several have seen the painting at my place." 27 If, as seems likely, 28 it was the painting of her with some photographs in her hand (plate 113), it was sold to a Danish collector, then to a Japanese one, and finally, continually identified, to a collector in New York. The portrait is, as Miss Cassatt pointed out in another part of one of the letters, unfinished; she is sitting somewhat informally (but not without dignity), it has a harshness which is closer to Cezanne than to Renoir, and the beautifully blue eyes are somewhat sad. But at the same time it is hard to understand why Mary Cassatt, who could see some qualities in it as a painting, would have felt so bitterly about it. It has the expressive face of an intelligent, humorous woman, painted with great tenderness by Degas; to us it seems to have a stronger and happier character than the charming portrait she painted of herself (plate 112). It is possible at this period that Degas might have worked subjectively with

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Miss Cassatt's appearance to create a personality that was not hers. He did play with the age of one model, the dancer Mile Malo, and painted her as a young girl (plate 91) and also as a middle-aged woman (plate 90), but there is at least some consistency, as if the two portraits would have been possible if they had been painted thirty years apart. Something of Degas' attitude toward a sitter at this time is revealed in a letter he composed, but apparently never sent, to Mme Dietz-Monin, whose portrait he was painting about 1879 (plates 104,105): Let's let the portrait go, I beg you. I was so surprised by your letter suggesting I reduce it to a boa and a hat, that I would not answer it. I thought that Auguste [her son-in-law] and M . Groult, to whom I had spoken of your last idea and of the absolute lack of taste to which I would have had to submit, would have told you. Need I say that I regret having begun something in my fashion to see it transformed into yours ? It might not be too polished and y e t . . . But I could not, dear Madame, tell you much more about it without making you understand only too well that I have remained very much wounded. Aside from my unfortunate art, accept all my best wishes. 29

This letter sounds as if the painting must have been that rare thing with Degas, a commissioned portrait, but it also makes it clear that he was unequipped to be a fashionable portrait painter who could work from a costume when the sitter was not available and flatter her in some charming way. None of the versions of Mme Dietz-Monin are finished, and none seem to have been owned by her or by members of her family. It was necessary for Degas, as he expressed it, to continue in his own fashion. What choice would Mme Dietz-Monin have had if she had shopped among the more accommodating portrait painters who exhibited at the Salon? Degas' early friend Bonnat (plate 106) was now established and would have painted a serious portrait of her standing imposingly in a rich dress which would decorously cover her shoulders and arms. If Mme Dietz-Monin were, as Degas painted her, a woman who liked to be remembered in her dress for a costume ball and one who would informally and good-naturedly greet her friends, it is possible that she might have found Bonnat's work dull and his interpretation of her boringly virtuous. On the other hand, if she went to the other extreme, to Clairin, whose portrait of Sarah Bernhardt (plate 107) had a certain success at the 1876 Salon, she—a good, sensible, solid soul—might have ended up looking as at home in her costume as a member of the demimonde. Among the Impressionists either Manet or Renoir 30 would have flattered her more, making much of her costume and the color of her skin, but only Degas would have concentrated to any extent upon the reality of what she was, her boa, her purse, and her straps falling in a certain way, her gloves wrinkling because she had the kind of body she had and

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used it in her own fashion. And it is her face—somewhat plain but very much alive—which attracts us more than her costume does. This could be in itself a kind of flattery, although it demanded her presence at the sitting to record a sustained impression of her personality. There are several things which distinguish Degas' portraiture in this period. One is the tendency to exaggerate certain physical characteristics to a point close to (but just missing) caricature. Another is to present things in bold, selfcontained shapes, which have expressive silhouettes, and in addition to compose clearly but unexpectedly with them. He also organized spatially so that the horizon is very high and we seem to be looking down at the sitter from above. All of these things have been attributed variously to Degas' interest in caricature, the theater, Japanese prints, and photography. Degas was interested in caricature. He is said to have waited eagerly for each new edition of he Charivari with prints by Daumier.31 He collected his works and Gavarni's,32 and also knew cartoons published in English periodicals by Constantin Guys, Charles Keene, and his friend Carlo Pellegrini,33 whose work appeared in Vanity Fair with the signature "Ape." Mr. Ronald Alley has shown 34 that Degas, in painting a portrait of Pellegrini (plate 98), which is now in the Tate Gallery, used as his model one of Pellegrini's own cartoons, which appeared in the English magazine Vanity Fair on August 14,1875 (plate 97). The juxtaposition of the works, as Mr. Alley makes it, gives us an opportunity to see how close Degas' work is to caricature. One distraction is the difference in quality, because, as Mr. Alley points out, the Degas is more subtle. He may have started with Pellegrini's pose but, with his flair for seeing expressive possibilities in the positions of the body, he varied it so that, although Pellegrini's legs are apart as in the cartoon, his weight is not balanced evenly upon them but falls heavily upon the right one and leaves the left free to stretch out at an angle, the foot tapping up and down. The right hand holds the cigarette but, since we see the whole of the arm supporting it, we are made aware of Pellegrini gesticulating with it. The left hand is not hidden in his pocket but peaks behind his back, holding his bowler so that we know exactly, without seeing any of it, where the arm is placed. And finally, the head is lifted, giving it an expression which is marvelously debonnaire. The contours of the silhouette are also far livelier than in Pellegrini's cartoon. But these are not differences which need distinguish a portrait from caricature. I feel the real difference may be that Degas is less static in his characterization; he has chosen a single strongly individual position for the human body, but emphasizes its mobility and suggests that its mood will change. He is neither as adamant nor as confining as a caricaturist. It may be unfair to compare Degas' work in this respect with that of a second-

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rate cartoonist like Pellegrini, but the same differences exist even when his work is compared with Daumier's. Degas was apparently attracted occasionally to a subject by a Daumier lithograph, as he had been in painting Dihau in The Orchestra. It may have been Daumier's lithograph, Robert Macaire Boursier (plate 100), which suggested his painting two friends, MM. May and Bolâtre, at the Paris stock exchange (plate 101). They wear the same kind of hat and have almost as strongly defined silhouettes. M. May's squat body, rounded shoulder with his top hat touching it, his hand on M. Bolâtre's shoulder, probably owed something to Degas' study of Daumier's work; we see them as from as unexpected an angle as we might in a Daumier cartoon. However, Degas' painting is less finished, less centripetally composed, much quieter, and, contrary to the tradition of the cartoon, less assertive, suggesting rather than demanding only one interpretation. Degas' use of an unpredictable setting and an unpredictable angle of vision has an element of surprise which is important in caricature. In this respect his pastel of his friends the playwright Halévy and a former Director of Censorship Cavé (plate 99) against a flat on a stage is a little like Daumier. However it clearly introduces another element which may also have affected his portraiture, and that is his love of all aspects of the theater. We have already seen in his etching of Ellen Andrée how he could exploit the body as effectively and as decisively as an actor on a stage. He does it here too in his portrait of Cavé, standing with his legs apart and his hands in his pockets, and of Halévy, swaggering a little as he leans on his slender umbrella. There may also be some influence of the theater in the spatial arrangement, with the sharp angle of the flat, the floor seen from above, the door which cuts through the figure of Cavé. However, in the pastel one is made to focus, as one never could on the stage, upon the revealing faces of the two men, Cavé interested and a little amused, Halévy serious and absorbed. Both caricature and the stage demanded the bold, decisive, and revealing forms which Degas' work possesses at this time, but these are also so visually interesting as two-dimensional shapes, frequently so shocking in color (like Halévy's and Cavé's black suits against the high-keyed yellow, green, and blue of the flat) and so imaginative in composition that they have suggested another very probable influence upon him—Japanese prints. Again we know that Degas' interest in this form of art was a real one and that he collected works by Sakinobu, Utamaro, Hiroshige, Hokusai, and that The Bath by Kiyonaga hung over his bed.35 He was probably introduced to Japanese art when he first returned to Paris from Italy, and he recorded its influence upon another painter in his portrait of Tissot (plate 46). Emile Zola, when he had seen Degas' portrait of Mme Gaujelin (plate 55) at the 1869 Salon thought of "those Japanese prints, so artistic in their

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simplicity and their tones." 36 It was generally accepted as an influence upon Degas' work in the seventies, for example upon the Place de la Concorde?1 Critics found it in the strong sense of pattern, the bird's-eye perspective, the asymmetrical compositions, and the willingness to cut through a human figure for a bolder effect. It could even be argued that Degas' subject matter is related to their genre or ukiyoye tradition. Japanese influence can explain his increasing reliance upon purely abstract means, but it is always related in a very European way to the description of that cumbersome, solid fact, the human body. The contours which Halévy fills are smooth, largely unbroken, and certainly bold, but they do suggest the bulk of a heavy woolen overcoat and his awkward body underneath. It is as if Degas had made use of Oriental means to make us see more clearly exactly how Occidental these two gentlemen were. Finally and, since his work was becoming more stylized, seemingly almost contradictorily, photography is suggested as another influence upon Degas.38 A historian of photography, Mr. Helmut Gernsheim, in his Masterpieces of Victorian Photography has written about Degas' work that "an eye trained by photography can at once detect the camera-angle in certain pictures" 39 and that in some of his works everything points to deliberate exploitation of the camera's image. W e have so far only mentioned the greater freedom noticeable in composition; but what of his unmistakable "camera angles," often allied to a distortion similar to that resulting from the use of a short-focus l e n s . . . or . . . a wide-angle lens . . . "Photographic" also is Degas' preference for letting the edge of the canvas cut through people and objects as if they were accidentally included, rather reminiscent of the happy-golucky snapshot one so often sees, in which the photographer literally did not manage to "get it all in." 4 0

Again the camera, like the theater and the Japanese print, can explain the unusual spatial effects in these works, for example in the tiny portrait Mr. John Walker has argued is one of Cézanne (plate 96). 41 Certainly some influence from all these art forms existed in Degas' works, particularly in his means, and significantly in each case toward a bolder, more decisive characterization in which he asserted his will; but none of them, I believe, in any way determined the nature of his interpretation. In painting Cézanne (if it is Cézanne), one could argue that the spatial arrangement, which is important, had its sources in the theater, the camera, or the Japanese print, but never that its use to suggest the man trapped like an animal in a corner could be anyone but Degas'. The man's position might be duplicated upon the stage, but—since he would have to move —never with the same sustained contrast between his concentrated body and the limp figure of the mannequin at his feet. That contrast, and the irony of their figures so claustrophobically inside and the figures in the paintings (within the

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painting) lounging in a pastoral world, might be found in caricature, but never so subtly stated nor with such a self-awareness on the sitter's face. This is a real person (or at least he seems real) and a real situation which Degas presents with a complete consciousness of its ironies and with an assumption of the basic dignity of the human spirit. Although influenced perhaps by photography, it is also very much a painting in which each animated movement of the brush, each sensitive stroke of color, is Degas. Degas may have felt more at ease in this period painting men than women; in any case his portraits of men like Cavé and Halévy seem less exaggerated and finally, in their responsive faces, more convincing.42 At this time in a letter to Bartholomé on August 5,1882, he wrote: "Monday morning portrait sitting with Pagans before he leaves for Spain." 43 It was a curious portrait (plate 1 1 5 ) . From drawings it seems that Degas originally considered painting Pagans playing the piano, but then changed it to a portrait of him seated behind a table reading, with the grand piano in the background. Perhaps because it was impossible for Degas to imagine Pagans without his own father, he introduced Auguste De Gas (eight years dead) as a ghost in the background. Just as Pagans had grown older, heavier, grayer, and more self-assured, so Auguste De Gas had aged in the painting, his flesh wasted, his animation gone; it is almost a vision of what he might have been if he had survived. Other differences between this and the earlier painting (plate 58) become apparent. In the later version there is no suggestion of sound, no emphasis upon communication between the two men nor between us and them (the furniture alone provides an effective barrier); spatially we are not part of the room but above it, as if we were in a balcony looking down upon a stage. Finally, the later work is even more of a painting; the brush strokes are broad, conspicuous, their effect unfinished, the color with a vibrancy which seems its own rather than something described, the composition boldly organized by the artist with a clear sense of his order imposed upon it. And yet, subjective as Degas' means are, we are made aware of Pagans' personality as it somewhat arrogantly dominates the picture area. Degas was as physically realistic in painting men at this period as he was in painting women. He thought of their bodies and of the strains and pressures involved in their movement, particularly as his sitters grew older. In his portrait (plate 92) of the once great dancer Jules Perrot as an old man who taught classes at the Opera and was ballet master there, he emphasized the ponderous weight of the body as Perrot placed his right hand on the settee, the left on his cane, while he tried to balance himself as he rose on his outspread and none too secure legs. The face itself is broken up by color, by light and shadow, so that little clear definition remains, but perhaps partly because of its lack of absolute clarity it

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seems a compassionate painting of the unhappiness of the man as he struggles to surmount his own ironic disability. A happier painting, but one just as dependent upon the sense of the body's existence, is Degas' portrait of his Italian friend, Diego Martelli (plate 102). Martelli is heavy enough so that his small arms are strained as they fold over his chest, but his legs are crossed so that his body, perched on the absurdly tiny chair, seems buoyant rather than inert. T h e objects untidily piled upon the table, the vermillion-lined slippers on the floor, the chalky colors of the framed fan on the wall, even the unexpected composition, give this painting a gaiety which, with the warmth of the expression on Martelli's face, makes it most endearing. If one remembers the somewhat similar portrait of Tissot (plate 46), this seems, in spite of the more formalized composition and our clear detachment as spectators, warmer, happier, friendlier, without any overtones of refined sensibilities or melancholy. 1879 was a year in which Degas painted some of his most memorable portraits. A t the Impressionist exhibition that year he exhibited the portraits of Martelli, Mme Dietz-Monin, Halévy and Cavé, May and Bolátre, the painter in his studio (perhaps Cézanne), and the pastel for the portrait of one of his closest friends, the novelist and critic Edmond Duranty (plate 103). Here again, by surrounding Duranty with books in the cases behind him and on the table before him, Degas built up an effective sense of space, as he had in the portraits of Martelli, Pagans, and Cézanne. But, as always, the man himself triumphs over the setting, and we feel the concentration of Duranty's energy as he plays with something with his right hand and presses two fingers of his left against his temple. The novelist and critic Huysmans wrote of this picture when the version now in Glasgow was exhibited in 1880: M . Duranty is there in the middle of his prints and his books seated behind his table; those slender and nervous fingers, those piercing and mocking eyes, that penetrating and acute look, that expression of wryness one finds in English comedy, that small dry smile into the stem of his pipe, rise before me again when I look at this painting in which the character of this curious analyst is so well rendered. 44

One final question must be asked about Degas as a portraitist in this period. T o what extent was he in this apogee of Impressionism an Impressionist? Historically he was one of them, exhibiting regularly in their independent exhibitions, but is it possible that his work had swerved in its direction from theirs ? Although it was different from Monet's, Renoir's, Pissarro's, Cézanne's, theirs was also different from each other's, and Degas must finally, I think, be considered equally Impressionist. If Impressionism can be defined as a fundamentally amoral movement in painting, in which the artist tried with abstract means to make the

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spectator experience visually, spontaneously, and with greater intensity an aspect of what he, the artist, had presumably only accidentally andfleetinglyseen, Degas was at this time an Impressionist. His abstract means seldom contained a vocabulary of small juxtaposed strokes of color, what he saw was more frequently Parisian than pastoral, and he was more interested in bodily movements than in color and light, but with the same lack of moral purpose as the others he used formal elements (frequently line and pattern) to give us—and as spectators we are very active before an Impressionist work—the immediate momentary effect of something he might have seen. In his portraits, like the one of Duranty, Degas made that unexpected glimpse psychologically revealing. Degas painted one other family portrait (plate 114) before this period came to an end.45 It was of his aunt Stefanina Primicile Carafa with her two daughters,48 of whom he had done the double portrait in the sixties (plate 29). In painting this Italian aunt and his cousins, he must have been struck by the parallel with The Bellelli Family (plate 27) painted about twenty years before. Surely he intended to recall the earlier picture by placing their black dresses against a similarly blue ground, by wedging a triangle of space between the duchess and her daughters as he had once separated the baron and his wife, and perhaps even in selecting a horizontal canvas. Nevertheless the differences are striking. The father is omitted, and the positions of the three sitters more difficult to explain; the most convincing suggestion is Paul Jamot's that Camilla is playing the piano.47 In keeping with the general character of Degas' later work, the handling is broader and everything is simplified by the omission of background details and by bringing the figures closer to the picture plane. The color is subtler and more expressive: thefleshtones have a softer, pinker glow; the blue ground is paler and a little more subdued than the Bellelli's; the blacks of their dresses are more richly varied in intensity. Without the excuse of the patterned wallpaper Degas has broken up the brush strokes themselves, in the window behind Elena, the pale green brushed in behind her mother's head, the accent of white in the handkerchiefs and on a pillow, to suggest light even more positively than in the earlier portrait. There is a visual excitement in the pattern which the earlier work does not possess to the same degree—a feeling for animated shapes which may have grown out of Degas' study of Japanese art. The later work not only shows differences in presentation; it is unlike The Bellelli Family in interpretation. In the portrait of the Montejasi-Cicerales the relationships and tensions are not as complex as in the earlier painting; the primary emphasis is upon the separation of the two generations. However in both area and spiritual force it is the duchess, somewhat like her sister, the Baroness Bellelli, who dominates the picture. Dignified in bearing and dress, monumental

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in her pyramidal form, tragic in expression, she sits gently wringing her hands. Degas is sympathetic to Elena and Camilla but particularly responsive to their mother's grief. It is characteristic of Degas at this time that he should have been drawn to the more mature human being rather than to those who were ingenuously young. Henri Rouart, Henri De Gas, Vicomte Lepic, Mme de Rutté, Mlle Andrée, Miss Cassatt, Mme Dietz-Monin, Pellegrini, May, Bolâtre, Halévy, Cavé, Pagans, Perrot, Martelli—none of them were young; all of them were, Degas suggests, more interesting because they had lived and, significantly, were continuing to live in their own active fashions. (It is true that there are children in some of these portraits, but almost as foils for the adults.) These sitters do not exist in a passive and melancholy world of contemplation, nor do they live with the youthful need to erect a barrier for their illusions like a Tissot or the Morbillis, in a dream like Mme Camus or Mme Hertel, nor with a sense of betrayal like Degas himself in his early self-portraits.48 All of them seem quite aware of the reality of life and quite capable of dealing with it and enjoying it; they are even confident enough to appear absurd. This admiration for maturity is probably an indication of Degas' own. Certainly in his use of formal means there is ample evidence of his self-assurance and independence. It is reassuring that, in spite of his unhappy private life during this decade, Degas asserted himself as a creative human being, interpreting and also enjoying the actuality of these other human beings whom he painted between his fortieth and fiftieth birthdays.

CHAPTER FOUR

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The year Degas was fifty he wrote to the painter Henri Lerolle: If you were a bachelor and fifty years old (for a month) you would have moments like these when you would slam yourself like a door, and not only upon your friends. Y o u would suppress everything around you, and once quite alone, you would annihilate yourself, kill yourself even, with disgust. I have begun too many projects which I, myself, have blocked, powerless. A n d then I have lost the thread. I thought there would always be time. W h a t I did not do, what I was prevented from doing, I never, even in the middle of my worries and in spite of my sick eyes, despaired of being able to do again some beautiful morning. I piled all my plans in a cupboard for which I myself always carried the key. A n d I have lost the key. In short I only feel the comatose state I am in and I cannot arouse myself from it. I shall occupy myself, as people say who do nothing. A n d that is all. I write you all this without any great need. It is enough to beg your pardon humbly for my rudeness. 1

This was undoubtedly the mood of a single moment, but Degas frequently felt his life to have become formless and even aimless. There was, of course, a certain routine in Paris of Tuesday nights at the Alexis Rouarts', occasional Thursdays at Ludovic Halévy's, and Fridays at Henri Rouart's. He saw other friends like Lerolle, Miss Cassatt, Albert Cavé and perhaps most frequently the sculptor Bartholomé and his wife. He would go to the Opéra, particularly to watch Rose Caron, who fascinated him, as M. Lemoisne has pointed out,2 in a way that Adelaide Ristori had done at the Théâtre Italien in his youth. Since Durand-Ruel now handled his work, which was beginning to sell, and there was only one last Impressionist exhibition during these years, in 1886, there was little of the excitement and irritation which either the Salons or the independent exhibitions had meant in the past. Manet, who had probably been his most stimulating friend

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and rival, had died in 1883. To relieve his boredom, particularly when his eyesight was poor, Degas would make visits—to the Valpingons at Menil-Hubert,3 to the Halevys at Dieppe,4 to the Jeanniots in Burgundy, 5 to Lafond and Cherfils in Pau,6 to de Valernes in Carpentras.7 He also enjoyed unconventional expeditions like the trip through Burgundy with Bartholome by horse and carriage; 8 or the voyage through Spain with Boldini, the fashionable portrait painter whom Degas admitted was something of a poseur; 9 or the unrealized trip he planned with Cave to Le Havre by way of Mont Saint Michel to see their friend Mme Howland off for America. 10 Because of his family he also had to go to Belgium, to Italy, and to Switzerland. 11 Whenever he was in Cauterets on his annual cure for his liver, a stay he seems to have found excruciatingly dull, 12 he would try to interrupt it with visits to Pau, 13 to Carcassonne,14 or to Lourdes. 15 Degas' liver concerned him far less than his eyes. He seldom read to himself now but had Zoe, his maid, read to him. He wrote in an undated letter to Henri Rouart: M y sight especially (health is the most valuable of all our possessions) is not right. Y o u remember one day that you said in speaking of I don't know whom, that in growing old he no longer "made connections," a term used in medicine for feeble brains. This term is one I have always remembered. M y sight no longer "makes connections" or with such difficulty that I am often tempted to give everything up and sleep forever. It is also true that the weather is so variable; when it is dry and clear I see better, very sensibly, although it takes me some time to get used to the strong light, which wounds me in spite of my smoked glasses; but as soon as the humidity returns I am like today; my eyes, which were burning yesterday, are swimming today. W i l l this ever come to an end, and h o w ? 1 6

Because of his eyes Degas now worked in spells; when his sight was satisfactory he would work intensively, painting almost completely in pastel, which he had always used quickly, as we know from Mme Morisot's remarks about his head of Yves Gobillard-Morisot. As one might also expect, he worked on a fairly large scale and with great boldness. It seems, nevertheless, a mistake to explain too much of his style in terms of his eyesight, for he had already been moving toward a greater freedom and a greater reliance upon abstract rather than descriptive means. Degas painted few portraits in his fifties; they made up only about ten per cent of his total output at this time. Since his work had, in every respect, tended to become more generalized, it is not surprising that he was not as interested in focusing upon the particular aspects of a human being. The changes in Degas' style, as it affected his portraiture, can be seen by comparing his pastel of a young woman in green seated in an armchair (plate 116) with the 1875 gouache of a woman on a sofa (plate 82). Without being any more monumental than the

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earlier one, the later work is simpler, more formally and symmetrically composed; even the young woman herself sits and is dressed with greater severity and propriety. There are self-contained shapes but fewer of them, and those not as distinct; they are surrounded by charcoal contours, which seem less decisive and a little monotonous. Unlike the lively contrasts in value in the earlier gouache, this, even with a greater range in hue, is subdued in key, with the only break the almost unhealthy phosphorescence of the face and hands. There are not the same precise lines to indicate the bones of the jaw, the nose, and the brows; Degas, rather, modeled with smudges of shadow which show the hollow in the cheek, the depth of the eyes. Finally the woman herself is not relaxed and selfassured but instead unhappily bewildered as she sits tensely forward in her chair. This pastel is not something merely to be seen and enjoyed like the earlier gouache. The sitter does not even seem in a visual sense quite as real; the background produces an unreal light, the wooden frame of her chair is serpentine. Her form of reality is in her wistfulness, a certain element of pathos, to which Degas begs our responses with his visual resources. What had happened to Degas' work ? Most of the vitality and animation in both the sitter and the formal means seem gone; this is more subdued, more passive, and essentially in its passivity more pessimistic. There is no longer the straightforward positive enjoyment of the perception of the thing seen. Actually it was not Degas but a follower of his, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who carried on and developed the tradition of Degas' work from the preceding decades. Toulouse, who was thirty years younger than Degas, had arrived in Paris in 1882 at the age of eighteen and had studied with Degas' early friend Bonnat until Bonnat closed his studio at the end of that year. It may have been from Bonnat or even more probably from his own distant cousins, the Dihaus, that Toulouse learned of Degas; in any case he became his most serious admirer, and, although they never became friends, one of the great moments of the young artist's life was when Degas said to him, "I see you too are one of us." 17 Toulouse must have had Degas in mind in painting his cousin, Mile Marie Dihau, playing the piano (plate 119), for Degas had painted a portrait of her at the piano (plate 61) over twenty years before, and it, with Degas' Orchestra, hung in the Dihau apartment. We are told that when Toulouse gave this portrait, with another of Désiré, to Marie he "inquired timidly and humbly whether they did not look ridiculous beside those of Degas." 18 At first the Toulouse seems closer to a contemporary Degas like the woman on the small sofa (plate 116); the costume and the hair are similar, and the oil is handled in strong, rather dry strokes, almost as if it were pastel. However, Toulouse placed Mile Dihau in a setting the very fussiness of which seems more convincing and lively than the

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setting in the Degas pastel, and he has her actively playing the piano. She has none of the soft beauty of Degas' portrait of Mile Dihau from the sixties, but basically she emerges, in her very angularity, in the concentration of her body, in her aura of practical good sense, as most Toulouses do, from Degas' painting in the seventies. How close Toulouse could come to Degas as a portrait painter can be seen by comparing his Portrait of the Actor Henry Samary from 1889 (plate 118) with Degas' portraits of Pellegrini (plate 98) and of Halévy and Cavé upon the Stage (plate 99). There is certainly Japanese influence in Toulouse's spatial organization, but it could have been transmitted through Degas. And certainly it was from Degas that Toulouse had learned to use the body so expressively and to compose so imaginatively. He carried these devices further and exaggerated (for example, in the hat) to a point where the figure becomes more obviously amusing than a Degas and closer to caricature. There are certain elements in Toulouse's work, however, which are not merely an intensification and clarification of Degas' work from the seventies and which may be relevant in considering Degas' own work at the time Toulouse was painting. Certainly structure is implicit in the Toulouse, particularly in the outlines of the body, but sometimes, like the boards of the floor, it can be treated rather indifferently and even, as in his brush strokes on theflatsor on M. Samary's suit, with a certain contempt. Since the work does not seem to possess as much body either in paint or in the substance of the figure or the setting, Toulouse could not have been as interested as Degas had been in the seventies in the tangible, either in the thing described or in the paint; therefore, spirited and lively as his figures, like M. Samary, are, they are not to the same extent solid matter. This can be explained by ineptitude (which is unlikely), indifference, or perhaps most convincingly by Toulouse's desire to go further than Degas in declaring his independence as an artist from the need (self-imposed) to record the world as he knew it to be. Degas' own work had also lost much of its substance. A head (plate 117) of the unknown young woman in the armchair does suggest structure (the strokes of charcoal and pastel on her dress and in the background play a more descriptive role than the strokes of paint do in Toulouse-Lautrec) ; however, when compared with an earlier pastel version of Mile Malo (plate 89), there is not the same sense of physical matter either in the flesh or dress or in the more economical use of pastel (there is far less of it on the page and it is not adulterated by any other medium). The later work indeed is so austere in certain respects, in spite of the wistful eyes and mouth, that it suggests contemporary portraits by Cézanne of his wife. However any comparison with Cezanne 19 makes the girl seem gentle and vulnerably human, and the severity of the composition a device to make her,

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by contrast, even more so. She has, partly because Degas was less preoccupied with abstract formal problems, none of the monumentality of the portraits of Mme Cezanne. In this period Degas was apt to be compassionate toward his sitters. Sometimes, as in his portrait of Mile Gabrielle Diot from 1890 (plate 137), it was a nostalgic response to a quiet prettiness. At other times it found greater scope, as it did in the unknown woman in one pastel,20 who seems desperately unhappy and lonely as she sits forward without enough energy to be defensive, the shadows around her eyes aging and revealing. A portrait of a woman in a yellow evening dress (plate 138) may be composed in a livelier fashion, the V of her brows and the neck of her dress quite spirited in themselves, but even here there is a sense of her unhappiness, and of Degas' pity.21 We know nothing of these sitters; even Gabrielle Diot is only a name to us. Probably most of them were models who had come to his studio to pose for other works, which would explain the intimacy of some of these portraits. One is a radiant head of a woman, who is probably Mlle Dobigny,22 a model who had posed for Degas for at least twenty years. Her hair falls luxuriantly over her shoulders, and her face is ready to break into an almost seductive smile. This work is warmer and happier than the other portraits, but there is still the same softness and passivity in it. Another, of an older woman (plate 132), is of such great dignity that it is a surprise to discover that a breast is revealed by her loose chemise. There is something of the earlier Degas in the strain of the finger under her chin, but there is pathos too, particularly in the very dignity of her bearing. In the charcoal study (plate 131) her face comes closer to tragedy. We do know one of Degas' sitters, Rose Caron, the soprano who had created roles in Reyer's Sigurd and Salammbô and was best known for her Elisabeth in Tannhauser and Eisa in Lohengrin, and about whom Degas had written in 1885 to Ludovic Halévy: M m e Caron's arms are always there. H o w well she knows how to leave them for a long time in the air, without any affectation, a long time, those arms both thin and divine, and then to lower them gently. Y o u should see them, you would cry, like me, "Rachel, R a c h e l . " 2 3

Degas' large portrait of her (plate 133), one of the few from this period in oil, is quiet but, in the process of revealing itself, achieves an almost romantic grandeur; Mme Caron even exists in an aura of rose, green, and golden light.24 She draws on her gloves with none of the nervous fussiness of the woman in the painting from the seventies in the Kanzler collection (plate 85) ; her gestures are strong, free, and genuinely nonchalant (she appears to be unaware of them).

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There is such a generous sweep, in addition, to the contours and the total composition that she seems a splendid creature whose proud but shadowed face could express the greatest tragedy. We also know that Degas painted a portrait of at least one ballerina, Mile Salle; a pastel of three views of her head is inscribed with her name and dated 1886 (plate 126). Since Mile Salle continued to dance in minor roles with the Opéra until 1919 and was only to pass through her apprenticeship in 1888,25 it seems likely that of these three heads, so different in apparent age, the ingenuous lower left profile must have represented her at that time. It is a delightful pastel with dark accents emphasizing the bridge of her nose, the bend from the chin to the throat, the area around the lobe of her ear. Every touch makes her, with her lustrous hair and soft skin, quite beguiling. The head to the right, although obviously still Mile Salle, is coarser, the hair duller, and the expression on her face hardly innocent and naive; there is in it, underlined by the heavy black bow around her neck and the deep cut of her dress, an almost Hogarthian robustness. The third head at the top is more fragile, presumably in anticipation of the charming older woman Mile Salle could become, and reminiscent of the heads of the eighteenth-century pastelists, Perronneau and Quentin de la Tour, whom Degas admired.26 In these three studies Degas romanticized youth and age, and directed any realism toward the state somewhere in between. There are, in addition, several other works which may be of Mile Salle. M. Lemoisne sees her in the pastel sketch of a dancer with a black ribbon around her neck (plate 128) but identifies another pastel (plate 127) of the same dancer, which is dated 1885 and is related to one of her in the ballet Le Fandango, as Mile Sallandry. In both drawings the skin seems more tightly drawn, the effect thinner than in the portrait of Mile Salle from 1886; but the features could be the same and the hair style is similar. Miss Browse, in her efforts to identify the dancers in Degas' work by exploring the Opéra archives, found nothing about Mile Sallandry and little about Mile Salle except that she had a reputation for roles involving disguise and an almost acrobatic vivacity.27 Whether this dancer in the drawing is Mile Salle or Mile Sallandry, or whether they could have been the same person, is still uncertain, but in both cases she seems somewhat distant from us; we are not made to feel the full force of her personality. Two other pastels from this period are associated with a ballerina, although she is fully clothed in street dress. One is a charcoal and pastel drawing which has always been known as "Mademoiselle S., Premiere danseuse a l'Opéra" (plate 130) ; however, this title is not inscribed on the drawing, and it is quite possible that tradition promoted the dancer. We might have either Mile Salle or Mile Sallandry again or possibly Mile Sanlaville.28 From this drawing and the other

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related pastel (plate 129), which is dated 1887, she seems older than the others but vigorous enough, in the way she holds herself, to be quite clearly, in spite of her clothes, a dancer. Degas' most complicated portrait (plate 120) connected with the ballet from this period is of three members of the Mante family, the modier and two of her daughters, Blanche and Suzanne; Degas made two versions of the work. 29 Miss Browse, who interviewed Blanche Mante, reports that the father was a bassoonist with the Opéra orchestra and that both these sisters studied in the ballet classes at the Opéra, stayed as dancers, and finally became instructors in the children's classes there. Apparently Suzanne, who wears the tutu in Degas' pastel, was the more gifted, since she became a premier sujet.30 As a visitor at the Opéra rehearsals and dancing classes, Degas must have observed how pathetic, gangling, overdressed waifs were transformed into more physically articulated human beings by donning their tutus. In painting the Mante sisters, whom he would have seen there often, he could contrast both sides of most small ballerinas' personalities. Degas was too much of a realist, however, to make the transformation complete. Suzanne Mante, in a tutu, may hold herself with more awareness of her body than her sister, but she is still somewhat awkward and her face is neither animated nor particularly charming. Both sisters seem mentally still, lost in a moment of unconsciousness, unresponsive to each other, their mother, and their surroundings. Although Blanche and Suzanne, even in their apathy, dominate the pastel, Degas inserted their kindly, soberly dressed mother, who is fixing Suzanne's hair, The self-effacing kind of parent Degas had often observed at dancing classes, she responds to external stimuli as her daughters do not, smiles gently while they seem unhappy. Whereas the dark mass of her body embraces Suzanne as a stabilizing background, the other sister, Blanche, is made to appear dispiritedly lonely. Degas in part seems to have been contrasting maternal and filial intimacy with an almost orphaned isolation. For these pastels Degas did rub his chalk on critical areas like the faces, but on the whole he used it directly and abruptly, forming brusque rhythms with the contours and pressing it down for linear accents. Out of its straight strokes he wove a fabric with the dulled nuances of light in a gloomy room. In neither pastel version was Degas much concerned with the articulation of the body. T o be sure, he still used movements which in themselves are expressive and which could be similarly employed in pantomime; the loose, relaxed arms of Suzanne and the simple device of the pointed toe are most revealing. But even more expressive are the formal contrasts between the two girls, brown against light, the drooping bell shape of the dress against the sprightly segment of the ballet skirt,

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angular contours against some curves. The difference is even emphasized by the diagonal, which the ballerina fills and which suggests action, against the stable vertical her sister occupies. Degas was here, as he was in all his work from this period, more dependent upon abstract means. Both versions of this pastel, but particularly the one in the Wintersteen collection, are very unhappy. The apathy, the suggestion of timelessness, the lack of any environment, the drabness of the color are haunting. Blanche's face, which is partly green, with blue strokes under her eyes and a red nose and full red lips, seems an expression of all the misery of childhood. However, perhaps because their unhappiness is so complete, they seem expressions of that state rather than portraits of individual members of the Mante family. In 1884 Degas apparently considered painting another study of a relationship between a parent and a daughter, but this time of the wife and daughter of his closest friend, Henri Rouart; perhaps he intended to balance the earlier portrait of Hélène with her father. Very little of the plan survives—one drawing, apparently a compositional study for the scheme (plate 122), a pastel of Mme Rouart (plate 123), another of Hélène,31 and a remark in a letter from Degas to Mme Rouart, which must refer to the abandonment of the project, for he wrote: "I want to put him [Henri Rouart] in your place in the portrait, and it would be sensible for me to draw his proportions in relation to his daughter's first."32 Degas often mentioned Mme Rouart in his letters to Henri and occasionally wrote to her himself, but it is difficult to form a true picture of his attitude toward her from his joking references to her as terrible or redoutable,33 One image does emerge of her as the protector of her husband, chiding Degas because he hadn't written to Henri or because he hadn't planned things better so that he could visit them. Degas often referred to the mother and daughter together in his letters to Henri. "I have not," he once wrote, "many arguments to pacify her [Mme Rouart] and I prefer to pay her all kinds of compliments once more on the young watercolorist to whom she gave birth."34 Another time it was: "All my kind remembrances to the vindictive Mme Rouart and to the young florist."35 Degas' original inspiration for the role of Hélène in this painting must have been a Tanagra figurine. Her uncle Alexis Rouart collected them, and her father probably owned a few; in any case they were fashionable in Paris at the time.36 The composition presumably began as a pleasant conceit of the mother and daughter looking at one of the figurines, which the daughter, particularly when wrapped in the shawl, so much resembled; but the work must somehow have escaped the good intentions of Degas. In the drawing of Mme Rouart, which Degas dated 1884 and in which we can see the folds of Hélène's shawl at the left, her profile is stern, her eyebrows contracted, and her lips held together with

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a certain mild irritation. From the meager shawl brought round her drooping shoulders and the frailty of the wrist, supported on the table, she seems fragile and ill. In the compositional study Degas had shoved her into the lower righthand corner, while the standing Hélène takes the dominant position, with more defiance than Tanagra-like affectation in the hip which swings out under the folds of her shawl. There is little apparent sympathy between the mother and daughter, the mother too reserved to show any stronger feelings than irritation or perhaps too subdued by illness and age to care, the daughter defiantly adult, about to burst forth from her cocoon. Degas was probably embarrassed at his discovery of this tension between mother and daughter and decided that it should not be the subject for a finished painting. In any case the portrait was not pursued, and the pastels of Mme Rouart and Hélène were finished independently.37 Although Degas apparently did nothing about replacing Mme Rouart with Henri in this portrait, he did begin to make studies for a large oil of Hélène alone; he probably worked on the painting, which he finished in 1886 (plate 124), for one or two years. In 1885 he wrote to her father: "Very little time given to the portrait of your daughter, in spite of the interest I have in it." 38 From the drawings 39 it is apparent he had considered another position for her, seated casually on the arm of a chair, but had settled for the one in the finished work, which would be equally informal without seeming obtrusive or daring. Unlike his other portraits from this period, he placed Hélène in a particular environment —a room of her father's house. This room, with its case of Egyptian objects, its landscape and drawing on the wall, the table piled with papers, is as important in building up an impression of the character of Hélène Rouart as the bookcases were in Degas' portrait of Duranty (plate 103) ; we know Hélène belongs in a quiet, cultivated home and seems dignified and at ease in it. It is interesting to compare this portrait with one Degas had painted of his sister Thérèse on a visit to her father's flat some twenty-five years earlier (plate 57), for the De Gas sitting room is also covered with pictures but it seems darker, richer, more solemn, creating a heavy atmosphere around Thérèse. Hélène, who stands more freely, also stands, by contrast, in a pleasant light. There is a little shadow on her mobile and not completely happy face, but there is none of the hostility and tension which Thérèse Morbilli reveals. We, who are not made to seem part of the room, as we are in the earlier work, can stand back and admire this young woman, who is unaware of us and who seems a little sad (she is more so in some of the preparatory studies) but still possesses an almost classical calm. In painting the only daughter of one of his greatest friends Degas would understandably want to make it conform to his ideal, which had little to do with the reality of the world he normally painted; he did not want to suggest the

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adolescent conflicts, no matter how convincing they might have been, which had emerged in his studies of Hélène for the portrait with her mother. His ideal was the classical one of completeness and serenity, which he had probably expected the Tanagra motive to satisfy. In painting the daughter of another great friend, Hortense Valpinçon, he had achieved that quality, even in the portrait of her as a child (plate 73) and again more conspicuously in a modest pastel in the early eighties (plate 125). In the portrait of Hélène Rouart the same purpose is revealed in the ease of the composition, the suggestion of scale, and the restraint which give it a monumentality which comes close to contemporary Cézannes; even the use of contours and the play with planes are somewhat similar. However, Degas' work has a softness which Cézanne's did not; it is apparent in the face of Hélène, where, in spite of Degas' self-discipline, there is a reflection of her unhappiness as a little girl on her father's knee. In the two principal oil portraits from this period, those of Rose Caron and of Hélène Rouart, Degas achieved a dignity which his pastels do not possess. One might argue that this was because both oils were early in this period and that the pastels, which were later, represent a certain deterioration in this respect. However, it is perhaps more possible that Degas considered his pastels as sketches and that he would have thought only of the oils as serious examples of his portrait painting. Degas made only a few pastel portraits of men in this period, but these are strongly characterized and easy to identify. One was of the Italian collector and engineer, Manzi (plate 136), who was a partner of the dealers Boussod-Valadon and had become primarily interested in reproductive processes; he made a volume of reproductions of Degas' work with the painter's collaboration. Degas painted him at work, watching an acid bath, but there is nothing of the momentary about the pastel; Manzi is quietly preoccupied with what is happening. A more animated portrait is of the Turkish still-life painter, Zacharian (plate 134), whom Degas drew in a bowler hat, tilted on his head with a certain aplomb, a cane in one hand, a cigarette in the other. Although the cast of his features is proud and his nostrils are withdrawn almost disdainfully as he inhales the cigarette, there is, even here, in the eyes and the unformed irregular mouth, a sense of Degas' sympathy. This warmth, which Degas shed in these paintings of his friends, is still stronger in his endearing portrait (plate 135) of the Comte Lepic with his terrier, a work reputedly painted, because of its strange violet cast, in artificial light. There is no bravado in this portrait of Lepic; he had grown gentler, and, in the amicable tilt of his head and his smile, he is as ingratiating as his little dog. Degas seems to have been making a moral judgment here, stating that this is a good human being.

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The most complicated of Degas' portraits (plate 121) from this period is the one I have kept until last, the pastel of six friends at Dieppe, which is now in the Rhode Island School of Design Museum. In October, 1884, Degas had visited the Halévys at Dieppe40 and had been captivated by the life there. Cavé was there, and three of a younger and admiring generation of painters, the Englishman Walter Sickert and the Frenchmen Henri Gervex and Jacques-Emile Blanche.41 Blanche, as the son of a distinguished Parisian physician, was part of the fashionable Anglo-French society of the seaside town, and through him Degas met at least Olga Carracciolo, who was reputedly the natural daughter of Edward VII and whom, a year later, Degas envied Blanche painting.42 Mme Howland, with whom Degas seems to have carried on a mild and safeflirtationand of whom he made a handsome photograph against a Persian rug,43 was also at Dieppe. These people were witty, the atmosphere was a festive one, and Degas even found the countryside beautiful.44 He must have decided to record this pleasant visit in this pastel of six of his male friends. Degas had, of course, painted two of the men in the group, Ludovic Halévy and Cavé, before. In the noble head of the bearded Halévy in the upper right of the pastel we can suspect a possible idealization which would reveal the easily satirical Degas' admiration and respect. Below him his thirteen-year-old son Daniel, with his clown-white face and a farcical straw hat, peeks ignominiously behind Blanche's arm. He was to become a member of the Institute, the author of books on impressive subjects like Nietzche and twentieth-century labor, and also of memoirs on Degas and his father's other friends. At the bottom is Cavé, to whom Degas always referred as the "man of taste," Cavé, seemingly calm, mature, and very wise, thinking apparently in a contemplative but directed fashion. At the right, between the Halévys and Cavé, are two dissimilar French painters. Second from the bottom is Gervex, who, like everyone in the group, is lost in contemplation, but a rather deceptive contemplation which is difficult to fathom exactly. The stiffer hat and the pointed beard are perhaps of a more modish cut than Cavé's, but somehow they suggest a little of the charlatan. There is a certain slyness in the upturned brow and the twist of the beard, but wit and humor too in the pointed nose and mouth. Underneath the beard, the face is soft and selfindulgent. Gervex, still in his thirties, had already acquired a certain reputation and official decorations for his mythological nudes and his modern version of the Anatomy Lesson and some notoriety for his nude, Rolla, which was rejected by the Salon in 1878 because it was considered pornographic. When it became known that he was the model for the unscrupulous painter in Zola's novel Oeuvre, Gervex enjoyed this fame and, according to Pissarro, asked his friends

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to call him by the name of the character, "Fagerolles." Degas may not have respected Gervex as a painter, but he seems to have enjoyed an occasional exchange of banter with him.46 In the pastel he isolated the arc of his body from Cave in front and from Blanche behind. The other French painter is above Gervex: Jacques-Emile Blanche, a popular portrait painter in France at the end of the nineteenth century and at the beginning of this, who, like Daniel Halévy, was to write about Degas. In 1904 André Gide wrote about Blanche in his journal: "Every time I meet Blanche, I feel immediately that I am not wearing the proper necktie, that my hat has not been brushed and that my cuffs are soiled. This bothers me much more than what I am about to say to him." 47 Degas suggests something of this elegance and urbanity in his figure of Blanche, which he raises far above Gervex and uses to conceal most of the Halévys with his arm and shoulder. Isolated from the other members of the group but curiously placed on the same level and with his back toward his contemporary, Blanche, is the English painter, Walter Sickert. Sickert and Blanche seem deliberately compared. In drawing the English artist, Degas emphasized not only his isolation, perhaps partly national and partly personal, but also his lack of self-consciousness, his greater ease, and his greater physical attractiveness. He is the man to whom Degas referred in his letters as "the young and handsome Sickert."48 He seems less fully realized than the others, whom Degas, as a compatriot, may have better understood. Sickert has written that, when Degas was painting him, Ludovic Halévy pointed out to Degas that his collar was turned up and Degas answered; "Leave it alone. It's fine." Halévy then shrugged his shoulders and remarked; "Degas is always hunting the accidental."49 Certainly such natural detail did appeal to Degas. Blanche wrote that Degas would show each of them exactly how to assume his most natural pose and that in the final work "these poses were so well captured, that even in the faces, which are hardly sketched in, one could recognize each of us." 50 Blanche must have been judging the work by his own highly polished style because, although the bodies are certainly represented accurately and presumably characteristically, the articulation of them mattered less to Degas than it had in the seventies, and the emphasis, typically for this period, is upon the heads and those quiet faces, each thinking in quite a different fashion. Degas might have been willing to reproduce Sickert's upturned coat collar, but it was he, and not accident, that determined how the sitters would be fitted meaningfully together. The composition is an eccentric one, although in its verticality, its curious form of symmetry, it is not unrelated to other portraits of the period, particularly The Mante Family. In arbitrarily shifting the planes of each of the figures on the right so that every sitter would seem isolated and dis-

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tinct and by clearly comparing Sickert and Blanche, Degas was obviously using the composition as a form of interpretation. H e made his control just as apparent in the way he handled his pastel. H e applied it horizontally on Sickert's coat, cross-hatched it on Blanche's, roughed it irregularly and a little shapelessly on Gervex's. With a heavy stroke of black or brown pastel, changing sometimes in a single line from one to the other, Degas harshly emphasized certain contours. Flowing lines of a very light orange cross over Sickert's body, growing further apart at the top, bursting into a smudge of white at the bottom. With such soft strokes over the warm gray paper, Degas built up a suggestion of texture and light —even the light upon the sand of a Dieppe shore. It is curious that Blanche, to whose mother Degas gave this handsome and ingenious pastel with a great bow, 51 should have continued to believe the work unfinished. This pastel is so clearly highly controlled that it does not seem pedantry to hunt some meaning in it. A l l six figures seem to be in a trance; only Sickert might move away. Although we know from tradition that they are at the shore, the light orange background might not make it explicit otherwise. In the figures at the right there is such a denial of normal spatial relationships and such a sense that time has stopped, that it seems a complete rejection of the Impressionist confidence in the importance of space and time. It is as if Degas, who thoroughly enjoyed these visits to Dieppe and these very people there, saw a reflection in them of that comatose state from which he, as he had written to Lerolle, was suffering. Only his sense of pathos as he drew young Daniel Halévy or his sense of moral worth, equal to Lepic's, in the figure of Cavé could break through the spell. Daniel Halévy, 52 with his sad clownlike face, could almost become a symbol, as Degas drew him, for the generation to which he belonged.53 The optimism of the Impressionists—the optimism which continued in Cézanne and was carried on curiously by Toulouse-Lautrec—was to disappear, and the sense of apathy, of futility, combined with pity, which Degas' work from this period possessed and which seems concentrated in Daniel's face, survived as a basic attitude in French painting until the beginning of Cubism.

CHAPTER FIVE

Î874-WJ

Degas' only important portraits from 1894 to 1905 were of members of the Rouart family. His friendship with Henri Rouart had proved the most enduring of all. His other friends were dying—Lepic by 1890,1 Eugène Manet, Manet's brother and Berthe Morisot's husband, in 1892.2 Paul Valpinçon, of whom he had written in November 1892 to the Fevres: "Three weeks in Normandy at the house of that old animal Valpinçon, who has some asthma, a little inflammation in his legs and shows no courage," 3 died in October 1894. In December Edmond Morbilli left Degas' sister Thérèse a widow in Naples.4 In 1895 not only Berthe Morisot passed away, 5 but more tragically for the painter his sister Marguerite and his brother Achille.6 And the next year saw the death of de Valernes in Carpentras.7 Their dying left him lonely and ready for death himself. In 1903, fourteen years before he actually died, the sixty-nine-year-old painter wrote to Félix Bracquemond: "I will indeed have to see you some day before the end." 8 However, he endured, a lonely old man, to whom his friendships with the Rouarts meant something more than any with younger men like Jean-Louis Forain and PaulAlbert Bartholomé. Not only the deaths of his friends made Degas lonely. He took such a firm and unreasonable stand in the Dreyfus case, which opened in 1894, that any friendship with a Jew became impossible. In September 1898 he wrote to Alexis Rouart: "The difficulty, there is only that, one cannot speak of the 'Affair' without crying with anger." 9 Since Degas had had close Jewish friends from his youth, it is unlikely that he had always been anti-Semitic, but he had that reputation as an old man. 10 His own stubbornness over the matter meant a break with Ludovic Halévy, one of his closest friends since childhood; 11 this left Degas even more dependent upon the Rouarts. Of the two Rouart brothers, who were both distinguished collectors, Henri, as

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well as Henri's family, seem, from the evidence of his portraits, to have meant more to Degas. Fortunately we have a full literary documentation of their friendship by Paul Valéry in his Degas Danse Dessin. Valéry had been introduced into the Rouart household by one of the sons and had been admitted to the Friday evening dinners at the rue Lisbonne at which Degas was a regular guest. Valéry described the character of these meals: A t dinner every Friday, at M. Rouart's, Degas would be the soul of the evening; a constant, brilliant, unbearable guest, spreading wit, terror, and gaiety. A piercing mimic, with an endless fund of whims, maxims, banter, anecdotes, brilliantly unfair in his attacks, infallible in his taste, narrow-mindedly yet lucidly passionate, he was always throwing mud at writers, at the Institut, at the aloof poseurs, and the artists who were bent on getting there—quoting Saint-Simon, Proudhon, Racine, and the weird pronouncements of "Monsieur" I n g r e s . . . . I can still hear him. 12

Valéry also described their host, Henri Rouart: In M. Rouart himself I admired . . . I was awed by the amplitude of a career in which nearly all the virtues of character and intelligence had been combined. H e was untroubled by ambition, by envy, by any thirst for appearances. True value was all he cared for, and he could appreciate it in several kinds. A m o n g the first connoisseurs of his time, a man who admired—and made early purchases of—the works of Millet, Corot, Daumier, M a n e t . . . and El Greco, he owed his fortune to machine construction, to inventions which he carried through from the purely theoretical to the technical and thence to the stage of industrial application. This is no place for the gratitude and affection I owe to M . Rouart. I will only say that he is among the men who have left an impress on my mind. 1 3

The final painting (plate 140) of Henri Rouart by Degas seems the physical incarnation of the man Valéry described; it is a double portrait with his son Alexis and reminiscent of the earlier portraits of either Henri (plate 87) or of his wife (plate 122) with their daughter Hélène. In this painting from 1895 the relationship between Henri and his son appears more placid than that between mother and daughter, for Alexis, as he draws on his gloves, seems a mere puppet, incapable of the rebellious spirit his sister displayed. His father, even if he had succumbed to an arthritic old age, 14 his shoulders bent, his hands folded in resignation, a subduing black cap on top of his now whitened head, still possesses an aura of wise, venerable dignity, in contrast to which his towering son appears an ineffectual little man. Within the simple composition of this double portrait Degas arouses our sense of pathos. Some of the strength of its effect comes from the vigorous handling of the unexpected color, almost bilious greens, oranges, and yellows, into which Alexis tends to merge, whereas the black and white of his father stand out against it strongly; the disturbingly reddened hole for Henri's eye becomes the focal point for the painting. Degas also handled the brushstrokes of oil so boldly that

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they have an impact upon us. In the description of the figures and the clothes they wear Degas is most revealing. The simplicity of the father's costume makes the shape and tilt of his son's derby hat and the coat, which does not quite fit, faintly ridiculous; even the outline of Alexis' sleeve is rumpled and untidy, whereas his father's contours are more angular and distinct. The heads are haunting. In the preliminary charcoal study of Alexis (plate 139) the bold and free strokes of chalk make the head plastic and expressive; the dark lines through the lips, the querulous brows, the deepset eyes, the drooping moustache are moving where they could so easily be comic. Henri Rouart's head, equally strongly handled, has both an intensity and a dignity which have deeper tragic implications; we can see physical disintegration, suspect senility and sense a haunted spirit. With the father and son Degas seems to compare the man who can reach the ultimate even in the degradation of old age, and will therefore command our respect, and the smaller man to whom we will always respond with milder emotions. About 1904 Degas made eight large pastel and charcoal studies for another double portrait of two Rouarts, this time of Henri's fourth son Louis with his wife, the daughter of the painter Henri Lerolle, one of Degas' friends. Louis Rouart was a writer of sorts, an art critic, one of the founders of the review L'Occident, and eventually publisher and director of L'Art Catholique. He knew André Gide, who refers to him in his journal. In considering Gide's opinion of him it is important to remember that the relationship between Louis Rouart and Gide was often a professional one, that certain editorial difficulties could have affected it, and that Degas and Gide were also not congenial. According to Paul Valéry, Degas did not like Gide, 15 and in his Journal Gide makes it evident that he considered Degas something of an old bore; 16 so Gide's evaluation of Louis Rouart would be by no means necessarily Degas'. About 1905, a year after Degas had made the studies of Louis and his wife, Gide wrote: Met little Louis Rouart, redder and more middle-class looking than ever. A s it is a long time since I have seen anyone, my smile suggests an exaggerated joy; he comes along with me. A s spotty, as strained conversation as ever; it seems like the spasmodic skirmishes of a fencing bout, but a bout without courtesy. W i t h the very first words, from the start, he attacks. W i t h him, in spite of myself, I throw up m y guard, take on a false, tense attitude, and say nothing natural. W h a t silly things he made me say yesterday! 1 7

In 1910 Gide wrote as if the Rouarts' acquaintances were sorry for his attractive wife. He quoted a story which was running through their circle in Paris : " Y o u must be very happy," someone said to his wife, "to see him become so religious."

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1894-1905 " I ! W h y , I am as sorry as I can be!" she exclaimed; "so long as he wasn't religious, I was able to count on religion to improve his character; now I have given up counting on anything." 1 8

In contrast to Gide's calumny, Degas' one published letter to Louis Rouart seems affectionate and even tinged with respect. He ended it: "Write to me again. You have given me so much pleasure. I embrace you, my dear child." 19 Probably Degas' and Gide's experiences with this man were unlike—but there are certain points about which Degas in these eight drawings (plates 141-143) 20 seems, presumably somewhat unconsciously, to have agreed with the younger writer. Degas found the same restlessness in the couple which Gide felt in Louis Rouart. Louis, whether he is standing, leaning on his wife's chair, or seated in another beside her, crosses his legs and twists himself into positions which would be difficult to sustain. His wife's imperious gestures (has she, like Gide, been forced into "a false, tense attitude"?) are not any more serene. And our eyes, caught up by the contours of their bodies or by Mme Rouart's stole, are kept moving in a slow but continuous rhythm which is broken only by short, abrupt, and even irritable strokes of pastel. There is also something of the suggestion of a duel, for, although their positions are natural and possible ones, their bodies seem to represent opposing forces, which are nevertheless attracted to each other. Clearly Degas, like Gide, found some difficulty in their marriage. The character of these eight drawings is not, however, identical. We can feel Degas exploring different attitudes, illustrating a statement Pissarro had made to his son Lucien in 1898: " D e g a s . . . constantly pushes ahead, finding expressiveness in everything around us." 2 1 There seem to be three distinct stages, but unfortunately we do not know the chronological sequence of them.22 In one group of three large pastels (plate 141) 2 3 Degas makes a witty commentary upon their mutual antagonism and indifference, as if he were prepared to be amused rather than to worry about this marriage between children of two of his friends. In another group,24 Louis is made subordinate and insignificant, and the composition given more intimacy than opposition. In the charcoal and pastel drawing (plate 142), which is the smallest of these eight works, Mme Rouart's face becomes a mask which, with the simple almond-shaped eyes and the abrupt right angle of her brow and nose, is genuinely tragic. Here Degas seems to have been moved rather than amused by the two Rouarts' unhappiness. In the two most elaborate versions of this double portrait (plate 143) 2 5 Mme Rouart looks back toward Louis but now lifts her head impatiently so that any tenderness is lost. Her eyebrows are exclamation marks of annoyance as she clutches her chair and lifts her right arm with irritation. There may be a play of undulating curves throughout the pastel, but the effect is not a graceful one; Degas was apparently

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using their ugliness to suggest that, although he was trying to restrain his feelings, he was offended by the hostilities he had discovered in their marriage. There is a range in the emotional responses aroused in us by these eight drawings, but there are also certain things the drawings have in common. Degas does not precisely articulate the setting or the bodies, nor does he emphasize their existence as solid matter. A chair or two and, in one of the pastels, some forms which must suggest tree trunks are the only definition of the environment. With M. and Mme Rouart, Degas' natural understanding of the human body is more assertive, but Louis' legs may fade out indeterminately or the features of his wife's face may not be clear. Although Degas was presumably ignoring the substantial and measurable, he did draw the bodies as if they could exist easily in space, placing them on a diagonal back from the picture plane and arranging them as if we were looking down at them from a balcony above. It is not a particularly animated space (there is little suggestion of atmosphere in it), but it does permit the relationship of the two Rouarts to be expansive and perhaps most importantly it gives us, as spectators, a point of view. From the vantage point Degas provides for us, M. and Mme Rouart seem remote, isolated, and generalized. Their relationship assumes a strongly defined character, but as individuals they are less precisely portrayed. They reveal that, like most artists in France about 1905, Degas was no longer interested in the particular human being. Even the children of his friends become, as much as color or line or space, expressive devices which in their restlessness, rather than directed energy, suggest that Degas now felt an aimlessness rather than a confidence in the human condition. It may have been the next year, 1905, that Degas worked on a composition of Mme Alexis Rouart, the wife of the son he had painted with Henri, with their two children in a garden or park (plate 144). 26 We see the family from the same point of view that we do M. and Mme Louis Rouart, and they and their environment are equally inarticulated and insubstantial. The composition and handling are more violent than the actions of the people involved; although Mme Rouart merely bends to hear what her small son is saying, and her daughter kneels pensively with her head and hands on the back of a chair, Degas worked with the diagonal movements and strengthened them through the preparatory studies so that the mother's body forms a sharp diagonal thrust to the left which is only somewhat subdued by the vertical of her small son, while her daughter's body moves as forcefully to the right. The suggestion, through these movements in themselves, that the mother is driven to distraction by the conflicting demands of her two children is increased by the sight of her hat fallen on the ground. The faces are ugly and disturbed in construction and feeling, the configuration of the

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long-haired daughter at the right particularly grotesque and, in its intensity, almost mad.27 There is none of the inherent order of Degas' earlier family studies nor a compassion any deeper than in the studies of M. and Mme Louis Rouart. Again a sense of futility, even desperation, is stronger than the separate identities of the three sitters. Although there is no doubt that the 1895 portrait of Henri and Alexis Rouart is a dignified performance, there is some question about the value of these other studies of the Rouarts, made some ten years later. Are the distortions intentional or the result of Degas' increasing blindness, and are the interpretations accidental or perhaps the aberrations of a somewhat unbalanced mind? Lemoisne finds them pathetic and writes about them: T h e only models who attracted him still—we know that Degas never made portraits of people for whom he did not care—were, some years later, the children of Henri Rouart, who formed the family of his choice. But these successive portraits, whether of M m e Alexis Rouart and her children or of M . and M m e Louis Rouart, were quickly abandoned. One feels that Degas tried in vain to capture a precise resemblance which kept escaping him. These sketches are the tragic witnesses of this battle of the artist against his infirmity; and the children of his old friend have not forgotten the unhappy impression that these sittings left when the admirable portraitist, endlessly increasing the sizes of his sketches, would only be able to produce something which was almost heartbreaking. Only as a colorist could he still do some remarkable things. 28

It is not easy to measure the quality of these late portraits. Like many artists late in their careers, Degas denied the corporeal to a point where the human being seems a mere phantom, ignored particular information even when it might have made his sitters more convincing, and communicated largely with abstractions like line, color, and an unreal light. Undoubtedly the emphasis was, as it had been increasingly since he was fifty (he was now seventy), upon feeling rather than upon seeing, and what he felt was, as M. Lemoisne implies, quite heartbreaking; there is none of the sense of resolution that is so consoling in the late work of Michelangelo, Titian, or Rembrandt. To an artist who had always liked to see the human body used functionally and meaningfully, the pointless restlessness in the movements of the sitters in these late portraits of the Rouarts must have been intended to make them seem ineffectual. To someone who had always composed as tellingly as Degas, the conflicting forces emphasized in their bodies must have been expected to suggest the directionless struggle of their lives. T o one as conscious of spatial implications there must have been some desire to show the young Rouarts' isolation and relative unimportance. Every line, perhaps less consciously, also reveals his own crabbedness and irritation. The feeling Degas therefore communicates, with a consistency and economy which make it

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impossible to belittle the results, is not one of man's heroism nor even of his dignity, but of his sheer futility. Contemporary Picassos from the Rose Period share this sense of the aimlessness of man, but Degas' portraits when compared with Picasso's seem harsher and more vigorous in their conviction of it. It is also difficult to see the relationship between the increasing disillusionment which these pastels reveal and Degas' genuine affection for the members of the Rouart family. 2 9 1 suspect a great deal emerged unconsciously as he tried to make happier portraits of them; this would help explain his desperate attempts to find other solutions and to rework these several times. He must have been disturbed to find himself expressing his own feelings about the nature of man rather than about the particular members of the Rouart family, for even as late as 1896 he had written to Henri Rouart: "Your form of posterity is beginning again. You will be blessed, good man, in your children and the children of your children. Since I have a cold I have been making some reflections on bachelorhood and threequarters of what I tell myself is sad. I embrace you." 30

QKiliMt The last ten years of Degas' life were unhappy. Bearded, almost blind, walking endlessly through Paris, he was often compared to Homer, 1 to Oedipus without Antigone, 2 to Lear. 3 It might also have been said that his spirit was that of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes. The photograph which Bartholome took of him at eighty-one is haunting 4 and explains why younger men wanted to identify him with the tragic giants of the past. But Degas remained stubbornly part of the twentieth century. He never spoke with the eloquence of Homer, Oedipus, Lear, or the Prophet in Ecclesiastes. When a fashionable portrait painter, Helleu, told him he resembled Homer, Degas answered, "Well, I'm not happier because of it." 5 When he was asked how he felt when a painting of his was sold at the Henri Rouart Sale in 1912 for 435,000 francs, he gave the well-known answer: "Like a race horse who has won a race and is given some oats." 6 And he would embarrass his friends by remarking in the middle of conversations, "Death is all I think of." 7 Even in the middle of what became his senility his remarks have a pungency which still shatter any attempt to make a hero out of this lonely, cranky old man. Degas was a Roman Catholic and through his niece's intervention did receive the last rites from a canon of Notre Dame, 8 but he does not seem to have been a person who would have found much consolation in religion. At twenty-four, when he had been at a church service in Santa Maria degli Angeli and had been moved by it, he wrote in a notebook, " I am not in the least religious, as it is practiced, but I felt something for a moment; the music was so beautiful that it touched me more perhaps than the sight of the pilgrims . . . " 9 The next day he wrote after an ordination service in Assisi, "What do sermons matter if I can develop a character convinced and steadfast enough to paint ? At least if I am not a religious painter I am so very much moved that I almost pray that I should feel as

Epilogue

8i

the believers feel." 1 0 About forty years later he wrote to his sister Marguerite after he had been to Lourdes : "a crusade at reduced prices, where there are both believers and thieves. Altogether I was very much touched—by the emotions of the others above all." 1 1 These rare glimpses show Degas moved by others' religiosity rather than feeling anything directly of his own. There seems to be little evidence —even forgetting that he did not paint religious works—to suggest that he was a religiously preoccupied man. Religion could not have had the profundity of meaning for him that it did for Michelangelo, with whom he has also occasionally been compared.12 Both Jacques-Emile Blanche 1 3 and Paul Valéry 1 4 have written that Degas was a moralist, by which they do not mean a moralizer but a seeker after truth. And certainly his portraiture seems the result of such an uncompromising, dedicated search, unclouded by political or religious convictions and seldom by any personal involvement. It was a search with visual means, for, just as Degas believed that line was "a way of seeing form," 1 5 he must have been convinced that painting and drawing were ways of exploring the personality of the individual. It was a search relentless in its realism, and, as Rivière wrote in this connection, "Reality is sad." 1 6 The ultimate conclusion, the triviality of the individual, could not have been consoling to a man approaching death, and particularly for a painter who reached the ultimate futility of not being able to work effectively for at least a decade before he died. Degas, who died in 1917, belonged to the twentieth century as he had belonged to the nineteenth. His final vision of the individual as incapable of determining his own destiny, his pessimism, his reliance upon the development of his highly personal formal means are the strongest elements in twentieth-century painting. His late works reveal the passion of his conviction—and if it is a passion without sensuality, a passion without resolution (his search never ended) and somewhat hollow—it seems a passion appropriate for his times.

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES

BN carnet D. Lemoisne, Vol. I L. Lettres Sale

Sale Degas Collection

Sale Collection of Prints

Degas notebooks, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, carnets 32yd. rés. The number which follows is of the particular notebook. L. Del teil, Edgar Degas, le Peintre-graveur illustré, Vol. IX (Paris, 1919). The number following is Delteil's. P.-A. Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre, 4 vols. (Paris: Paul Brame et C. M. de Hauke, 1946- ), Vol. I (text). Any quotations by permission of publishers. Ibid., Vols. II and III. The arabic number following the L. is Lemoisne's numbering of Degas' paintings. Degas, Lettres, ed. by Marcel Guérin (Paris: Editions Bernard Grasset, 1945). Any quotations by permission of publisher. Catalogue des tableaux, pastels et dessins par Edgar Degas et provenant de son atelier dont la vente . . . aura lieu à Paris, Galerie Georges Petit: I, May 6-8, 1918; II, December n - 1 3 , 1918; III, April 7-9, 1919; IV, July 2-4, 1919. The roman numerals refer to the sale; the arabic numbers following, to the numbers in the sale. Catalogue des Tableaux Modernes et Anciens composant la Collection Edgar Degas dont la vente . . . aura lieu à Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, March 26, 27,1918. The arabic numbers following refer to the numbers in the sale. Catalogue des Estampes Anciennes et Modernes composant la Collection Edgar Degas dont la vente . . . aura lieu à Paris, Hotel Drouot, November 6, 7, 1918. The arabic numbers following refer to the numbers in the sale.

INTRODUCTION

1 This statement is, I realize, debatable and in contradiction to those like E. A. Jewell's in French Impressionists (New York: Random House, 1944), p. 16: "As for Degas, I must come out with it bluntly and say that he was never an Impressionist at a l l . . . , " or D. Cooper's in the Introduction to the translation of Paul Valéry's Degas Manet Morisot (New York, i960), p. xxiii: "the work of Degas, which is not, of course, impressionist..." The difficulty is clearly one of definition, and I can only ask the reader to turn to mine and to some justification for it on pp. 57-58. 2 Or from the memory of them from moving trains. See D. Halévy, "Propos de Degas," Lettres, p. 278. 3 Lettres, II, November 27, 1872, to Frölich from New Orleans, p. 23. 4 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 54. 5 Ibid., p. 229, note 35, from January 4,1859. 6 Ibid., p. 30, from November 11,1858. 7 Lettres, II, November 27, 1872, to Frölich from New Orleans, p. 23. 8 Ibid., LXV, September 15, 1884, to Bartholome, p. 91. 9 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 1.

CHAPTER O N E

1853-1865

1 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 226, note 10, lists Degas' record at the lycée from his entrance on October 5, 1845, until he received his bachelier ès-lettres March 23, 1853. In 1848 he received a third prize for drawing, in 1849 a second, in 1850 a fourth, in 1851 a third, and in 1852 a first. 2 Ibid., p. 15.

3 P. Lafond, Degas, Vol. I (Paris, 1918), p. 70. 4 Félix-Joseph Barrias (1822-1907), winner of the Grand Prix de Rome, 1844. Degas was his pupil in April, 1853 (see Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 227, note 13), but otherwise the dates he studied with him are not known. 5 Louis Lamothe (1822-1869), a student of Ingres and of Hippolyte Flandrin. In 1854 Lamothe did not have his own studio but received students at his home on the rue du Regard; this address is in one of Degas' notebooks (BN carnet, 20, formerly Q, p. 6), which he used from September to December, 1854. Lemoisne, Vol. I, pp. 10-11, quotes Degas' friend Henri Lerolle on the character of this studio. 6 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 15, writes: "nous ne savons même pas dans quel atelier il entra; seuls quelques concours de places subsistent durant son premier semestre et le résultat n'en est pas très brillant." Louis Lamothe, who introduced his student to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, did not teach there, and so he could not have been his instructor; however, it might have been Lamothe's teacher, Hippolyte Flandrin (1809-1864), who did teach there at this time. 7 H. Delaborde, Ingres, sa vie, ses travaux, sa doctrine (Paris: H. Pion, 1870), p. 59, note 1. 8 See Sale Degas Collection : nos. 50-69,182-214. 9 P. Valéry, Degas Danse Dessin (Paris, 1938), p. 61 ; M. Denis, Théories, 1890-1910 (Paris : Bibliothèque de l'Occident, 1913), p. 94. 10 E. Moreau-Nélaton, "Deux heures avec Degas," L'Amour de l'Art, Vol. XII (July, 1931), p. 269. 11 In a notebook from September to December 1854 : BN carnet, 20, formerly Q, pp. 53,54,59. 12 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 229, note 35, quoting from a letter from the father to Degas on January 4,1859. 13 Ibid., p. 227, note 13.

86 14 In a notebook, BN cornet, 28, formerly 327, from which Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 23, also quotes. 15 BN carnet, 14, formerly K. 16 Ibid., 15, formerly L, pp. 101, 99 (with color notes); this painting is now usually credited to Brescianino. 17 These are all in BN cornet, 20, formerly Q : the "Raphael" on p. 31, the Bronzino on p. 40, and the Puligo on p. 57. 18 Ibid., the Ingres on p. 54, the Andrea da Solario on p. 12. This notebook is from September to December, 1854. 19 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 229, note 35, quoting from a letter from the father to Degas on January 4,1859. 20 Unless otherwise indicated, information of this kind comes from Lemoisne, Vol. I, and seems based upon solid evidence. 21 J. Fevre, Mon Oncle Degas, ed. by Pierre Borei (Geneva, 1949), pp. 24-27, describes the incident in a highly romanticized way. She is not necessarily a reliable source, but there are parts of this account which ring true, particularly that Degas should have complained (p. 25) within the family circle: "C'est dans cette mansarde que j'ai pris froid aux yeux." It would have been typical of him not to have discussed the incident outside the family, although P. Valéry, Degas Danse Dessin (Paris, 1938), p. 15, wrote that Degas told him that the bad sight in his right eye was due to a damp attic bedroom. 22 The signature on this drawing was probably added later because, although there is some emphasis upon the "g," it still seems part of one word, as he was to write his name later. I see no reason to question the date, however. 23 J. Walker, "Degas et les maîtres anciens," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Vol. X (September, 1933), p. 182, demonstrates the influence of Perugino upon Degas, although not with this example. 24 There are preparatory drawings for this in two notebooks: BN cornet, 20, formerly Q, pp. 32, 75 (from autumn, 1854) ; and BN cornet, 15, formerly L, p. 14 (spring, 1855). 25 Louvre RF 29293 (Sale IV: i2id), René sleeping and snoring; Fogg Art Museum 658, René convalescent; BN cornet, 20, formerly Q, p. 25 (from 1854) ; BN carnet, 15, formerly L, p. 5 (from 1855).

Notes 26 The portraits of René and Achille suggest an affinity between Degas and Chassériau, an affinity which Degas is supposed himself to have admitted by saying "We are both Creoles." L. Benedite, Théodore Chassériau, sa vie, son œuvre, 2 vols. (Paris: Editions Braun, 1932), does reveal that Chassériau's reactions to painting and to Italy as a young man were surprisingly like Degas' early in his career. However, C. Sterling, in writing on "Chassériau et Degas," Beaux-Arts (May 26, 1933), p. 2, from which I quoted Degas' presumed statement above, went too far in believing them friends and identifying a profile drawing of a bearded man by Chassériau as a portrait of Degas, since it is dated 1842, when Degas was eight (see catalogue of exhibition, Théodore Chassériau, Dessins [Paris: Musée du Louvre, 1957], p. 16, no. 27). The actual documentary evidence of Degas' enthusiasm for Chassériau beyond this legend is slight. The only works of the other painter he collected were prints, listed in the Sale Collection of Prints, p. 16, under one number, 59, as "Sujet divers et Portraits. Quinze pièces, par et d'après Th. Chassériau." A drawing like Degas' of René may suggest a Chassériau drawing like the portrait of the nephew of the Princess Cantacuzène (illustrated Bénédite, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 481) but, in an actual comparison, René reveals a sturdiness, an energy, a self-confidence the other melancholy little boy could never demonstrate. In the same way a comparison of the painting of Achille with the portrait of Ernest Chassériau in the uniform of the Ecole Navale (illustrated Bénédite, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 74) shows how much more Degas was attracted to a lively play with pattern and was already more interested in the body (not subordinating it, like Chassériau, to the face). Degas' portraits never have the same consistent emotional and almost neurotic intensity of Chassériau's. Any similarity their works may reveal is, I suspect, because they were not unalike as men, and as painters they were both influenced by Ingres and Delacroix. Chassériau died in 1856, not long after Degas went to Italy. 27 For this there is a preparatory drawing: Louvre R F 29293 (Sale IV: 121c), on reverse side of drawing of René (see note 25). 28 Reproduced in Fevre, op. cit., opposite p. 17. 29 A study for it is in BN carnet, 20, formerly Q, p. 13. This is fairly certainly from 1854; see Boggs, "Degas

Notes Notebooks in the Bibliothèque Nationale, I, Group A [1853-1858]," Burlington Magazine, Vol. C (May, 1958), p. 166. L. 51 (Musée du Petit Palais, Paris) seems not unrelated to it. 30 Reproduced in Lettres, plate XI, as in the Louvre. 31 There are studies for this in BN carnet, 20, formerly Q (fall, 1854), and BN carnet, 75, formerly L (spring, 1855), pp. 6,14; see Boggs, op. cit., pp. 166-167. 32 Degas owned a copy of another version of this self-portrait by Ingres' first fiancee, Anne-Marie-Julie Forestier; see Sale Degas Collection: no. 39. 33 L . 4, Degas in a Blac\ Coat, A. Conger Goodyear collection, New York; L. 3, ex-Guérin and Weinberg collections; drawing, red crayon on paper, ix J4 X 814 inches, John Nicholas Brown collection, Providence, R. I. 34 Fevre, op. cit., p. 25. Quotations by permission of publisher. 35 Ibid., p. 27. 36 In addition to plate 13 : L. 12, Degas in a Smoc\, Stephen C. Clark collection; L. 13, Degas in a Brown Vest, Fevre collection. 37 Traditionally Degas is supposed to have made his first trip to Italy in 1856; see his niece, Fevre, op. cit., p. 33. However, Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 16, believes he went there in 1854 and 1855. The evidence he gives comes from notebooks in the Bibliothèque Nationale which I believe he dates incorrectly; see my first two articles on "Degas Notebooks at the Bibliothèque Nationale," I, Group A [1853-1858]," Burlington Magazine, Vol. C (May, 1958), p. 163; "II, Group B [1858-1861]," Burlington Magazine, Vol. C (June, 1958), p. 196. It is possible, however, that Lemoisne had other sources he did not give. R. Raimondi in his Degas e la sua famiglia in Napoli, I793~I9I7 (Naples, 1958), p. 264, says that Edgar used to spend the summers with his grandfather in Naples, but in a largely well-documented book he does not give any evidence for this. More difficult to accept is Raimondi's assertion (op. cit., p. 252) that Degas had his first art training in 1854 at the Reale Istituto di Belle Arti in Naples; again this is not documented, and Professor Ottavio Morisani, who has been president of the Accademia di Belle Arti, which evolved from it, has assured me in conversation that no such evidence exists. I was also unable to find, for the second half of 1854, the painter's name among the arrivals in Naples, recorded

87 apparently systematically in the daily newspaper, the Giornale dette due Sicile. Sufficient proof has not yet been offered for the painter's trip to Italy in 1854. 38 In spite of my disagreement with Sgr. Raimondi in the note above, I have found his book the best source for information about the Italian branch of the family. With the carefulness of a lawyer, which he is, he has documented the genealogical charts he gives and also the business and political careers of Degas' Italian relatives. 39 L . 10, Louvre, inscription on back in Degas' hand: "Nini Bellelli, Naples, 1856." 40 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 29. 41 Edmond About, Rome Contemporaine (Paris: Michel Levy, 1861), p. 61, wrote: "L'Académie pratique largement l'hospitalité . . . ses galeries d'étude et ses séances de modèle sont accessibles aux jeunes artistes de tout pays." Drawings by Gustave Moreau in the Gustave Moreau Museum in Paris suggest that he and Degas worked from the same models at the same time, presumably at the Villa Medici. 42 Louvre RF 5634/24.461, RF 1810/05634, p. 12. This notebook is an Italian one, made in Naples or its environs between July and September 10, probably in 1857. 43 Fevre, op. cit., p. 40, note 1. 44 Besides plates 14 and 15 there is L. 31, Self-Portrait with a White Collar, ex-collection Marcel Guérin. 45 In a notebook, without page numbers, in a private collection in Paris. It has dates from February 6 to June 4,1857. 46 Degas' copy of the Rembrandt, which is reversed, is D. 13. 47 The drawing from Titian's Paul HI is in BN carnet, 15, formerly L, p. 20, and two drawings for the portrait of his grandfather are on pp. 21 and 23 (p. 23 is illustrated in Boggs, op. cit., Group A [May, 1958], fig. 26). 48 Raimondi, op. cit., pp. 13-77. 49 In the collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Rewald, there is a drawing, formerly in the collection of Marcel Guérin, which is traditionally a portrait of Adelchi Morbilli, Degas' first cousin, and which bears a strong resemblance to a photograph of his eldest brother Gustavo (1828-1848), which is reproduced in Raimondi, tav. 9. There are drawings of the same young man, which

88 are even closer to the photograph, in Sale III: 93 left and right, and Sale IV: 102a. Within one frame (Sale IV: 102) Degas had this last drawing of Adelchi, a drawing of a standing woman (who resembles the photograph of Adelchi's mother, the Duchess Morbilli, which Raimondi reproduces [tav. 7]), and of another young man with features similar not only to Gustavo and Adelchi but also to Edmondo, another brother, whom the painter's sister Thérèse was to marry. The same young man in this drawing, which is now in the collection of Mr. Robert Lehman and which is catalogued mistakenly (The Lehman Collection, New Yor\ [Cincinnati Art Museum, 1959], p. 29, no. 280) as a selfportrait, also appears in another drawing (plate 21) framed between two drawings of Adelchi (Sale III: 93). He seems fairly certainly Alfredo Morbilli, the second brother, who was Gustavo's successor to the title of duke after his brother's death in 1848. This supposition has been confirmed for me by two photographs of Alfredo Morbilli in the possession of his daughter, Signora Matilde de Echaniz y Embil. 50 Sale III: 93 center. 51 Lemoisne, Vol. I, pp. 29-32. 52 BN carnet, 28, formerly 327, pp. 49-101. Lemoisne, Vol. I, pp. 20-25, reproduces most of the text. 53 Raimondi, op. cit., quadro II. 54 In "Edgar Degas and the Bellellis," Art Bulletin, Vol. XXXVII (June, 1955), p. 127,1 reproduced several of the preliminary sketches. Although I am still convinced about the sequence, I now think, on the basis of more thorough study of the notebooks (the findings of which I have since published in the Burlington Magazine), that the sketches in BN carnet, 18, formerly O, are from the winter of 1858-1859, and those in BN carnet, 19, formerly P, are from i860. 55 Raimondi, op. cit., pp. 156-189 and pp. 206-248, gives a great deal of the public career of Baron Bellelli but little of his private life. 56 See V. Spreti, Enciclopedia Storico-Nobiliare Italiana, appendice part 1 (Milan: Soc. An. Stirpe, 1935). 57 In a letter from January 4, 1859, quoted in Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 32. 58 Raimondi, op. cit., p. 246. 59 BN carnet, 1, formerly D, p. 96; this is from 18601861.

Notes 60 The drawing by Degas from this, in the Mrs. Barbara K. Rosenwald collection (14V2 X " inches) seems later. 61 BN carnet, 16, pp. 41-43. 62 Ibid., p. 42. 63 Ibid., p. 41 64 Ibid., p. 44. 65 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 32. 66 Among preparatory studies are those in BN carnet, 18, formerly O, pp. 7, 9, 12(F), 43, 52, 53, 59-65, 99; many drawings, including a colored pencil head of Giovanna (L. 68) in the Lerolle collection, the gouache figure of Giulia (L. 69) at Dumbarton Oaks, others which were in the collection of the late Marcel Guerin, and many in the Louvre; two oils (L. 63, 65) and a developed pastel of the whole composition (L. 64), which is in the Hansen collection, Ordrupgaard, Denmark. 67 Louvre drawing R 1870/15484. 68 Raimondi, op. cit., p. 248. Also T. Sarti, II Parlamento Supalpino e Nazionale (Rome: Tip. Pintucci, 1896), p. 100. 69 Raimondi, op. cit., p. 261, says that the painting was in the Bellelli household once they returned to Naples and was inherited by Giulia Bellelli Maiuri. When Degas was in Naples at the turn of the century and found that a hole had been burned in it by a lamp, he took the painting back to Paris to repair it, but never returned it to them. 70 About 1859-1860, in projecting a portrait of Alfred de Musset, Degas had written in a notebook (BN carnet, 27, formerly Z, p. 6) "fond bleu comme la femme de Bronzino a Florence ou comme l'Anne de Cleves de Holbein." 71 Degas at the time of his death owned a caique of The Forestier Family: see Sale Degas Collection: no. 208. 72 Degas made several studies of this clock; see BN carnet, 16, formerly M, pp. 20-21; BN carnet, 19, formerly P, p. 22; and BN carnet, 1, formerly 327D, pp. 120-121. 73 Degas changed the shape of this chair. It is not the same in the Louvre drawing (23414) of the baron. 74 Raimondi, op. cit., plate 20, publishes a charming photograph of the actual table. 75 Ibid., p. 248, for some justification of this. 76 See G. H. Hamilton, Manet and his Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954), pp. 16-17.

Notes 77 E. Defonds, L'Artiste, n.s., Vol. V I (April 17, 1859), p. 250, assumed that the aim of portraiture was "une realité tellement saisissante que l'illusion sera complète"; J.-A. du Pays complimented Horace Vernet in L'Illustration, Vol. X L I (January 24,1863), p. 55, on "la recherche de précision et la sincérité du rendu, simulant le relief presque jusqu'au trompe l'oeil"; and H. de Callias on Fantin-Latour in L'Artiste, 7 e serie, Vol. V (June 1, 1864), p. 3, praised him for "une ressemblance frappante." These are only a few of many examples illustrating the critics' interest in verisimilitude. 78 J.-A. du Pays in L'Illustration, Vol. X X V I (July 21, 1855), p. 40, wrote of Flandrin: "C'est un talent sérieux, consciencieux, modeste"; T . Gautier in L'Artiste, n.s., Vol. II (1857), p. 284: "M. Ingres seul pourrait peindre un meilleur portrait"; E. Cantrel in L'Artiste, f serie, Vol. III (May 1,1863), p. 199: "M. Hippolyte Flandrin me paraît être devenir légèrement le maître d'Ingres." On April 15, 1865 (7e serie, Vol. VII), L'Artiste complained that Flandrin's memorial exhibition had over 20,000 visitors, while Delacroix's only had a few thousand. On December 1, 1865, in "Chronique" in L'Artiste, 7 e serie, Vol. VIII, p. 261, there was the question: "Mais pourquoi un boulevard à Flandrin et une petite rue à Delacroix? La mort n'est donc plus juste que la vie?" 79 H . de Callias, "Salon de 1863" L'Artiste, f serie, Vol. III (May 15,1863), p. 214. 80 L.-M. Lagrange, "Exposition de la Société des Amis des arts de Lyon," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Vol. V (March 1, i860), p. 266. 81 J.-A. du Pays probably stated this attitude most unequivocally in L'Illustration, Vol. X X V I (July 28, 1855), p. 71: "pour l'art les bourgeois ne sont que des vilains. L'art est aristocrate," and on p. 72: "de nos jours le nom de bourgeois lui-même est devenu un terme de dérision." E. Texier in L'Illustration, Vol. XLIII (May 14, 1864), p. 311, found the salon bourgeois and wrote against "l'égalité devant l'art." Valleyres wrote in L'Illustration, Vol. X X V I (December 1,1855), p. 363, of Ingres' Comtesse de Broglie: "Les petits clercs de la littérature, qui rêvent duchesses mais n'en voient guère, apellent cela une peinture aristocratique. Pauvre aristocratie . . . " 82 Flandrin was always complimented on his re-

89 straint, for example by J.-A. du Pays, "Salon de 1863" L'Illustration, Vol. XLII (July 11,1863), p. 23, in describing his portrait of Napoleon III: "le sérieux de l'oeuvre, sa tenue, sa sagesse," the attitude of the Emperor as "simple et naturelle," Flandrin's style as "grave, mesuré et sobre." Manet on the other hand was attacked, for example by L. Lagrange, "Salon de 1861," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Vol. IX (July 1, 1861), p. 52: "Mais quel fléau dans la société qu'un peintre réaliste. Pour lui, rien de sacré.—M. Manet foule aux pieds des affections plus saintes encore. M. et Mme [Manet] . . . , ont dû maudire plus d'une fois le jour qui a mis un pinceau aux mains de ce portraitiste sans entrailles." 83 J. Rewald (on information of Suzanne Eisendieck), "Un portrait de la princesse de Metternich," L'Amour de l'Art, Vol. XVIII (March, 1937), pp. 89-90; also M. Davies, French School (London: National Gallery Catalogues, 1957), no. 3337, p. 69; H. Schwarz, "Art and Photography: Forerunners and Influences," Magazine of Art, Vol. XLII (November, 1949), pp. 255-256. Degas seems to have idealized and simplified the Princess Metternich's features; the faint shadow is perhaps used rather romantically. 84 See T . Gautier, "Salon de 1857," L'Artiste, n.s., Vol. II (1857), p. 190; E. Defonds, "De la photographie au point de vue de l'art," L'Artiste, n.s., Vol. V I (April 17, 1859), p. 250; Fr. Claudet, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Vol. IX (January 15, 1861), p. 101. Claudet even pointed out that eliminating sittings would make portrait painting cheaper. 85 See H . Flandrin, Lettres et pensées (Paris: H. Pion, 1865), p. 353, from April 1, 1845; Un Siècle de Vision Nouvelle (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1955), an exhibition prepared by J. Adhémar. 86 L. 65, until recently owned by Jacques Seligmann, Inc., probably painted in 1858-1859.1 discussed its relationship to the later double portrait in "Edgar Degas and the Bellellis," Art Bulletin (June, 1955), pp. 134-136, and gave my reasons for dating the latter 1862-1864. The preparatory drawing for the Los Angeles portrait, which I reproduced as no. 13, owner unknown, is in the Boymans Museum, Rotterdam; it was Sale III: 156 3e. 87 Once attributed to Gentile Bellini; copy, L . 59, collection Sir Kenneth Clark, England. 88 I identified the sitters and gave my reasons for

Notes

pò dating it about 1865 in "The Montejasi-Cicerale Sisters by Degas," Wadsworth Atheneum Bulletin, Hartford, Conn., Series 3 (Winter, 1957), pp. 10-12, but I have gathered from a conversation with Camilla's only son, Signor Francesco Russo Cardone di Cicerale, who also showed me photographs, that the identification should have been reversed. See Raimondi, op. cit., quadro IX, for their family tree. To it can be added information given me by Mr. Ronald Alley of the Tate Gallery that their cousin, Signora Bozzi, had written him that Camilla was born in 1856 and died in 1929, and the information of her son that she was born in 1857 and died in 1928. 89 Ingres, Miles Harvey, drawing, Montauban, 1804, for two unidentified paintings of sisters; Chassériau, The Painter's Sisters, Louvre; Rouget, Mlles Mollien, Louvre. 90 For example, Whistler, At the Piano, 1859, private collection, Cincinnati; Fantin-Latour, The Artist's Sisters Embroidering, 1859, City Art Museum, St. Louis. Both are reproduced in J. Rewald, History of Impressionism (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1946), pp. 28, 29. 91 Raimondi, op. cit., p. 150, has nothing to add about Edmond. 92 Lettres, CLXXVI, Monday, August 31, 1893, p. 196. 93 Fevre, op. cit., p. 92, from a letter from MontDore, August 15, 1895. 94 Lettres, CLXXVI, Monday, August 31, 1893, p. 196. 95 Fevre, op. cit., between pp. 80 and 81, wrongly described as Marguerite De Gas. 96 L. 109. 97 L. 108, formerly Monteux collection, Paris. One drawing of her head, now in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., is dated 1863, though I expressed doubts about the date in my "Degas Notebooks in the Bibliothèque Nationale, III, Group C [1863-1886]," Burlington Magazine, Vol. C (July, 1958), p. 243, note 3. 98 For example, the drawing of M. and Mme Ramel. 99 Collection Mme Ernest Rouart. See note 82. xoo See P. Hendy, "Degas and the de Gas," Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Vol. X X X (June, 1932), pp. 44-45, on this portrait.

101 L. 99, Paul Valpinçon, Mr. David Daniels collection. 102 See Lettres, CLV-CLVII, CLIX, CLXXICLXXIV; Fevre, op. cit., pp. 83,84, publishes two letters to de Valernes not in the Lettres. 103 Lettres, CLVII, October 26 [1890], from Paris, p. 178. 104 G. Rivière, who knew Degas from about 1875, wrote in Mr. Degas, Bourgeois de Paris (Paris: H. Floury, 1935), p. 108 : "Le portrait de Degas, à coté de son ami Evariste de Valernes . . . est extrêmement intéressant parce qu'il indique une attitude habituelle de l'auteur. Très souvent . . . réfléchissant à ce qu'il allait dire ou faire, Degas portait ainsi sa main au menton comme s'il éprouvait une certaine hésitation à se decider ou à formuler sa pensée." 105 Fevre, op. cit., p. 40, note 1. 106 See later portrait of de Valernes, L. 177, dated 1868, Louvre. 107 P. Valéry, Degas Danse Dessin (Paris, 1938), p. 174, does mention a very late self-portrait which is, however, otherwise unrecorded. Degas did photograph himself frequently later. 108 Besides plate 32, L. 103, Bergengren collection, Lund, Sweden. 109 M. Guérin, Dix-neufs portraits de Degas par luimême (Paris: Marcel Guérin, 1931). 110 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 41, letter written March 3, 1863. HI Ibid., letter written April 22,1864. 112 Ibid., letter written November 21,1863. 113 In addition to Lemoisne my information about the New Orleans branch of the family comes from J. Rewald, "Degas and His Family in New Orleans," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Vol. X X X (August, 1946), pp. 105-126.1 have written a short note on this drawing: "'Mme Musson and her two Daughters' by Edgar Degas," Art Quarterly, Vol. X X I (Spring, 1958), pp. 60-64.

CHAPTER

Two 1865-1874

1 The Correspondence of Berthe Morisot, compiled and ed. by Denis Rouart, tr. by Betty W. Hubbard

Notes (London: Percy Lund Humphries, 1957), p. 70. Quotations by permission of publisher. 2 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 51, accepts this anecdote, and does not date the meeting; Delteil (D. 12) accepts it; E. Moreau-Nélaton, Manet raconté par lui même, Vol. I (Paris : H. Laurens, 1926), p. 36, says Degas told him the story. 3 Degas seems to have worked from Victorine Meurent, Manet's favorite model early in his career. Her address as 193 blvd. Poissonnière is in BN carnet, 8, formerly E, p. 221. Also see plate 48 for a drawing of her. 4 E. Moreau-Nélaton, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 104. 5 Lettres, III, December 5, 1872, p. 26, to Henri Rouart. 6 See plate 46. 7 L. 178, Musée Gustave Moreau, Paris. 8 L. 135, ex-collection A. Vollard. 9 Three drawings of Manet, belonging to Ernest Rouart, were exhibited at the Orangerie as nos. 103,104, 105 of Exposition Degas, Portraitiste, Sculpteur (Paris, 1931) ; see also Sale II: 210. 10 G. Moore, Impressions and Opinions (New York: Scribner's, 1891), p. 321. 11 J.-E. Blanche, Propos de Peintre: de David à Degas (Paris : Emile-Paul Frères, 1919), p. 148. 12 BN carnet, 21, formerly R, pp. 46-47. 13 B. Newhall, The History of Photography (New York: Museum of Modem Art, 1949), pp. 60-61. 14 BN carnet, 8, formerly E, p. 6, quoted from F. A. Darby. 15 Morisot, op. cit., p. 77. 16 A. Vollard, Degas, an Intimate Portrait, tr. by R. T . Weaver (New York; Greenberg, 1927), p. 121. Quoted by permission of Chilton Company. 17 A. Proust, Edouard Manet, Souvenirs (Paris : Lib. Renouard, 1913), p. 11. 18 J. de Nittis, Notes et souvenirs du peintre (Paris: Librairies réunies, 1895), quoted in Moreau-Nélaton, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 50. 19 C. Baudelaire, Lettres 1841-61 (Paris: Société du Mercure de France, 1907), to Etienne Carjat, October 6, 1863, p. 353, quoted by Moreau-Nélaton, op. cit., Vol. I, P-5320 E. Moreau-Nélaton, Vol. I, op. cit., p. 124, letter written October 25, 1870. Quotations by permission.

91 21 There is, however, another composition concerned with marriage from this period; this is the oil sketch of a man and wife (L. 41) and the study for it (L. 42), which Lemoisne believes to be M. and Mme Ducros from 1857-1859. The costume and the style of a preparatory drawing (Sale IV: 100b, John S. Newberry collection) and of these paintings and another study (L. 43) suggest a later date, which seems confirmed by preparatory studies for the work in BN carnet, 21, formerly R, p. 34, and BN carnet, 8, formerly E, p. 119 (see my "Degas Notebooks in the Bibliothèque Nationale, III, Group C [1863-1886]," Burlington Magazine, Vol. C [July, 1958], pp. 243, 244), which cannot be earlier than 1869. Neither it nor Le Viol (L. 348, Mcllhenny collection, ca. 1871), which may indirectly involve marriage, could stricdy be considered portraits. 22 Morisot, op. cit., June 22,1871, p. 66. She added : "and he, who is supposed to despise her, was charming to her. She has become much fatter, which does not make her any prettier in my eyes, though Tiburce says it does . . . " 23 Ibid., May 2, 1869, p. 31. Edma answered her Saturday, May 8 {ibid., p. 33) : "I pity Monsieur Degas with his latest fancy." 24 BN carnet, 21, formerly R, from 1869, p. 45. 25 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 56.1 must apologize for having in "Degas Notebooks . . . , " op. cit., p. 244, note 17, used the word "disconcertingly" where I intended to write "discerningly" as now. 26 L. 183, Poursin collection, Paris. 27 Jeanne Fevre, Mon Oncle Degas, ed. by Pierre Borel (Geneva: Pierre Cailler, 1949), p. 98. Quotations by permission of publisher. 28 See L. 208-212, Sale III: 152 center. 29 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 62, quotes Duranty from the newspaper Paris-Journal, May 8,1870. 30 Fevre, op. cit., p. 98. 31 Morisot, op. cit., p. 33. 32 Ibid., p. 35. 33 Ibid., p.35(n.d.). 34 Ibid., p. 36. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid., p. 43. 37 Sale II: 337. 38 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 70, from letter of June 26.

92 39 There is another version of this portrait, L. 257, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which seems somewhat later. 40 Dihau is playing the bassoon in the center. T o the right of Dihau are the flutist Altès (of whom Degas painted another portrait, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), the first violinists Lancien and Gout, and Gouffé, who played the bass. Chabrier is in the box at the far left. Pillet, the cellist of whom Degas painted another portrait (now in the Louvre), is at the left. Between Pillet and Dihau in order from left to right are the tenor Pagans, the white-headed Gard (who was the metteur en scène of the Opéra Ballet), the painter Piot-Normand, and another friend, Souquet. Degas mentioned exhibiting this work in a letter to Tissot September 30,1871 ; see the English edition of Letters of Degas, tr. by M. Kay (Oxford, 1947), letter I, p. 11. 41 J. Adhémar, Honoré Daumier, (Paris: P. Tisné, 1954), p. 122, wrote of this print: "A l'origine des recherches de Degas et de Lautrec, tous deux grands admirateurs de Daumier." 42 Degas' friend, Edmond Duranty, wrote in 1876 in La Nouvelle Peinture (Paris: H. Floury, 1946), p. 44: "Si l'on suppose, par exemple, qu'à un moment donné on puisse rendre la photographie colorée d'un intérieur . . . " 43 Degas painted another "portrait" in the theater; this is of the ballerina Eugénie Fiocre in the secondary role of Nouredda, which she danced when Saint-Léon's ballet, La Source, was produced at the Opéra first on the night of November 17,1866; this is L. 146 in the Brooklyn Museum. Although a daring work, it seems more nearly a picture of a dance than a portrait of the ballerina. See L. Browse, Degas Dancers (London, 1949), p. 51. 44 Morisot, op. cit., May 5,1869, p. 32. 45 Exhibited at the Petit Palais, 1955, no. 32, dated 1856, collection Rodolphe d'Adler, Paris. 46 Morisot, op. cit., May 5,1869, p. 32. 47 Ibid., p. 27. 48 Ibid., May 2,1869, p. 31. 49 G. Rivière, Mr. Degas, Bourgeois de Paris (Paris : H. Floury, 1935), pp. 116-117, writes of this portrait: "Rien de plus vivant, de plus sympathiquement observé sans qu'on puisse y discerner la moindre flatterie, que cette étude de femme intelligente et affinée par le

Notes milieu d'artistes et d'écrivains dans lequel elle vivait." 50 Portrait of Mme Fantin-Latour, exhibited at the Salon, 1877. 51 Courbet, The Trellis, 1863, Toledo (Ohio) Museum of Art. 52 Millet, Girl with Flowers, ex-collection Henri Rouart, Louvre. A. Mongan, "Portrait Studies by Degas in American Collections," Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum, Vol. I (May, 1932), p. 65, points out the possible influence of Millet. Both the Degas and Millet were reproduced in L'Amour de l'Art, Vol. XII (July, 1931), P- 3°453 A comparison of Manet's and Degas' etchings from Velasquez's Infanta Marguerite in the Louvre is instructive. Since Degas worked directly from the painting, his (D. 12) is reversed; it also makes an effort to retain the character of the painting. Manet's is bolder and more assertively himself than Velasquez. 54 S. L. Faison, Jr., "Manet's Portrait of Zola," Magazine of Art, Vol. X L I I (May, 1949), pp. 162-168. 55 June 9, 1868; quoted in G. H. Hamilton, Manet and his Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954), p. 129. One of Manet's most individual portraits was painted in 1868 of his friend Duret, and Duret has described how dissatisfied Manet was with it until he had added the still life in the lower left corner; see T . Duret, Manet (New York: Crown Publishers, 1937), p. 62. 56 T . Thoré, quoted in Hamilton, op. cit., p. 124. 57 Morisot, op. cit., October 18,1870, p. 48. 58 Moreau-Nélaton, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 123. 59 Ibid., p. 124. 60 Ibid., p. 126. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid. 63 !3 X 9/4 inches, formerly collection Mme Jacques Fourchy (née Hortense Valpinçon), Mr. John Seymour Thacher collection, Washington, D. C. 64 Lettres, LIV, August 21,1884, p. 80. 65 For example, Au Jardin by Manet, 1870, once in the Havemeyer collection. 66 I see no reason not to accept the traditional identifications of these sitters; see M. Guérin, Lettres, p. 80, note 2. However, G. Rivière, Mr. Degas, Bourgeois de Paris (Paris: H . Floury, 1935), p. 121, believed the man was Lepic, and in the catalogue of the Musée de

Notes l'Orangerie exhibition, De David à Toulouse-Lautrec (Paris, 1955), p. 20, he is identified, according to information given by M. André Marchant, as Jeantaud. In answer to this the work was in the collection of the Valpinçon family and was accepted as a family portrait (see S. Barazzetti, "Degas et ses amis Valpinçon," BeauxArts, August 31,1936), and the man's arched nose seems more like Valpinçon's than either Lepic's or Jeantaud's. 67 Lemoisne, Vol. I, letter of June 26,1872, p. 70. 68 Again, for information on the New Orleans branch of the family see J. Rewald, "Degas and His Family in New Orleans," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Vol. X X X (August, 1946), pp. 105-126. 69 Ibid., p. 119, fig. 13. 70 Lettres, I, November 11 [1872], p. 19. 71 Lettres, III, December 5,1872, p. 26. 72 A. Alexandre, "Degas, nouveaux aperçus," L'Art et les Artistes, Vol. X X I X (February, 1935), p. 157. 73 Rewald, op. cit., p. 116. 74 Lettres, II, November 27, 1872, to Frôlich, p. 24. 75 I was guilty of this assumption in my Ph.D. dissertation, "The Group Portraits of Edgar Degas," Radcliffe College, 1953, p. 115. 76 J. Rewald, History of Impressionism (New York : Museum of Modern Art, 1946), quotes Pissarro's advice to Louis le Bail, 1896-1897, p. 358. 77 Lettres, II, to Frôlich, p. 23. 78 L.318. 79 Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Rewald. 80 L . 319, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 81 L. 313 identifies her as Mrs. Bell on the basis of information from the New Orleans branch of the family. I wonder whether they had not confused this portrait with the other on the balcony; she seems blind in the Washington painting. 82 M. Lemoisne has told me, in conversation, that René De Gas identified this as a portrait of his first wife. This seems a more immediate source than that of René's son, Gaston Musson (born 1875), who claimed it to be of a family friend, Mme Challaire; see J. Rewald, "Degas and His Family in New Orleans," Gazette des BeauxArts, Vol. X X (August, 1946), p. 118, note 17. G. Bazin, Trésors de l'Impressionnisme au Louvre (Paris: A. Somogy, 1958), p. 126, accepts Gaston's identification of the sitter as Mme Challaire.

93 CHAPTER T H R E E

1874-1884

1 L. 124, Louvre. 2 Lettres, IV, August 8,1873, p. 30. 3 E. and J. de Goncourt, Journal, Vol. V, 1872-1877 (Paris: G. Charpentier, 1891),pp. 1 1 1 - 1 1 2 . 4 J. Rewald, "Degas and His Family in New Orleans," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Vol. X X X (August, 1946), pp. 121-126, is the source for the information about the painter's financial and personal difficulties. Quotations are by permission. 5 Ibid., p. 121. 6 Ibid., p. 122. 7 Ibid., p. 123. 8 Lettres, XII, p. 40. 9 G. Moore, Impressions and Opinions (New York: Scribner's, 1891), p. 310. 10 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 102. ix Ibid. 12 J. de Nittis, Notes et Souvenirs du peintre (Paris : Librairies réunies, 1895), quoted in E. Moreau-Nélaton, Manet raconté par lui-même (Paris: H. Laurens, 1926), Vol. II, p. 49. 13 Lettres, III, December 5,1872, p. 27. 14 L. 373, collection Mme Ernest Rouart, Paris. 15 J. Walker, "Degas et les maîtres anciens," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Vol. X (September, 1933), p. 182, illustrations 13 and 14, p. 179. 16 This can be dated by a sketch for the background in BN carnet, 7, formerly DF, p. 96, from 1876. It may have been inspired (or provoked) by de Nittis' Place de la Concorde, exhibited and praised in the Salon of 1875. This date would be consistent with the ages of the two girls; Eylau would have been eight and Janine seven in 1876. Degas had painted the three together about 1870 : L . 272, Bührle collection, Zurich. 17 J. Rewald, The History of Impressionism (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1946), p. 264. 18 In one portrait at least, the one of Eugène Manet, Degas did add the background later; see L. 339, collection Mme Ernest Rouart, Paris. 19 P. Valéry, Degas Danse Dessin (Paris, 1938), pp. 98-99; English translation by D. Paul in Degas Manet Morisot, ed. by Jackson Mathews (New York: Bollingen Series X L V : i 2 , i960), p. 56. Reprinted by permission.

94 20 D. 20. quotes Arsène Alexandre in Les Arts, no. 171 (1918), p. 14, on this etching: "En quelques grifïonis, Degas a évoqué, ni plus, ni moins que la charmante Ellen Andrée qui, par sa grâce gamine, son tact parisien capiteux et léger, illumina le petit groups Halévy, Degas, Meilhac, Renoir et tutti quanti." H e presumably did not mean, however, that she resembled the print. 21 See BN carnet, 1, formerly D. 22 G. Rivière, Mr. Degas, Bourgeois de Paris (Paris, 1935), p. 18. 23 Lettres, CXIX, p. 150. Degas owned one painting and three drawings by Mary Cassatt (see Sale Degas Collection: nos. 8, 102-104) a n d many prints (see Sale Collection: nos. 16-58). 24 L. 582, 583; D. 29, 30; two drawings in Sale IV: 249, 250. 25 Sale IV: 250b. 26 Lionello Venturi, Les Archives de l'Impressionnisme, vol. II (Paris and New York : Durand-Ruel, 1939), no. 21, p. 129. Reprinted by permission. 27 Ibid., no. 23, p. 131. 28 Confirmed by Mr. Frederick A. Sweet, May 13, 1959-

29 Lettres, XXVIII, pp. 56-57. 30 For example, Manet's portrait of Mme Gamby, The Promenade, 1879, formerly in the Goldschmidt collection, and Renoir's portrait of Jeanne Samary Standing, 1879, Leningrad. 31 Degas owned 330 Daumier prints cut from Le Charivari and over 400 others, many of them proofs before printing: see Sale Collection of Prints: nos. 61-103. 32 Degas owned over 1,000 prints by Gavarni: see Sale Collection of Prints: nos. 129-196, and Lettres, CLXXXV, p. 203. 33 Degas made a drawing from Constantin Guys as early as i860: BN carnet, 1, formerly D, p. 185. There are addresses for Pellegrini in two notebooks: BN carnets 7, formerly D F (from 1876) and formerly DB (from 18 77). In Sale Collection of Prints: no. 215, there were 16 examples of Charles Keene's work and in BN carnet, 5, formerly D D (1880-1883), P- 5> there is a note about Charles Keene's "Our People." 34 R. Alley, "Notes on Some Works by Degas, Utrillo and Chagall in the Tate Gallery," Burlington Magazine, Vol. C (May, 1958), p. 171.

Notes 35 See Sale Collection of Prints: nos. 324-330; Lemoisne, Vol. I, pp. 176, 180. He may also have been affected by the remarkable collection of Japanese prints of his friend Alexis Rouart, with whom he dined each Tuesday : see Rare and Valuable Japanese Color Prints, the Collection of the Late Alexis Rouart of Paris (New York: American Art Association Galleries, 1922). 36 E. Zola, "Mon Salon," L'Evénement Illustré (June 9, 1869), quoted in L. Venturi, Archives de Vim• pressionnisme (Paris and New York: Durand-Ruel, 1939), vol. II, p. 276. 37 G. Rivière, op. cit., p. 121, of the Place de la Concorde: "Il apparut même assez choquant aux critiques, en 1874, en raison de la fantaisie japonaise que l'auteur apporta dans la composition de cette toile." 38 Among others by D.Lord [pseud, for D.Cooper], "Nineteenth Century French Portraiture," Burlington Magazine, Vol. C (June, 1938), p. 260; H . Schwarz, "Art and Photography: Forerunners and Influences," Magazine of Art, Vol. XLII (November, 1949), p. 255; P. Cabanne, Edgar Degas (Paris: P. Tisné, 1958), p. 5. Degas' interest in photography was considerable: see Lettres, X, p. 39, and P. Valéry, Degas Danse Dessin (Paris, 1938), pp. 42, 70. He seems to have been more active as a photographer himself from about 1885. See Luce Hoctin, "Degas photographe," L'Oeil, no. 65 (May, i960), pp. 36-43. 39 Helmut Gernsheim, Masterpieces of Victorian Photography (London: Phaidon Press, 1951), p. 16. Quoted by permission. 40 Ibid., pp. 14-15. Quoted by permission. 41 J. Walker, European Paintings from the Gulben\ian Collection (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1950), p. 28, no. 9. 42 Degas in this period painted two double portraits of men, Paul Lafond and Alphonse Cherfils examining a painting, L. 647, Cleveland Museum of Art, which he signed "Degas à ses chers amis," and of L. Lepic and M. Desboutin, L. 395, Louvre. 43 Lettres, XL, p. 68. Another portrait of Pagans (L. 692, Wildenstein's, New York) is generally believed to be the one referred to in this letter. The painting itself seems convincingly from 1882 in reproductions but curiously like Degas' style from the late 1860's in the original. I have compromised in suggesting ca. 1875 as a date.

Notes

95

44 Quoted in F. Fosca, Degas (Paris: Société des Trente, 1921), p. 26, from review of "L'Exposition des Indépendants en 1880." 45 The date of this painting has traditionally been given as 1881, e.g., L. 637. However R. Raimondi, Degas e la sua Famiglia in Napoli, 7793-/9/7 (Naples, 1958), p. 264, believes it must have been painted when Degas was in Italy either in 1874 for the funeral of his father or in 1875 for the funeral of his uncle Achille, since the three women seem to be in mourning. However, they might have been in mourning again in 1879 when a sister of the duchess, the Duchess Morbilli (Rosa-Adelaida De Gas), died and also her brother Henri, the guardian of Lucy De Gas (Raimondi, op. cit., quadro II). Elena would have been 20 in 1875, Camilla 19, the Duchess 46. 46 For the family tree of the Montejasi-Cicerales, see Raimondi, op. cit., quadro IX. Raimondi on p. 133 quotes from the mother's obituary in La Discussione of April 30, 1901, referring to her as "donna virtuosa pia e caritatevole in sommo grado." 47 P. Jamot, Degas (Paris, 1924), p. 59, note 1, actually gives the credit for this suggestion to Mme Marcel Guérin. 48 In relation to this it is interesting to consider that G. Rivière, in L'lmpressionniste (April 6, 1877), no. 2, reproduced in L. Venturi, op. cit., vol. II, p. 313, wrote: "ce que M. Degas hait le plus, d'ailleurs, c'est la griserie romantique, la substitution du rève à la vie . . . "

CHAPTER FOUR

1884-1894

1 Lettres, LIV, August 21,1884, p. 80. 2 Lemoisne, Vol. I, pp. 148-149. 3 For visits to Menil-Hubert see Lettres, LVI, L V I I (August 22,1884), LIX, L X , LXII, LXIII, LXIV, L X V (September 15,1884), L X V I (October 3,1884), L X V I I , C L X I X (August, 1892), C L X X (August 16, 1892), CLXXI, CLXXII (August 27,1892). 4 For visits to Dieppe see Lettres, LXVIII (October, 1884). 5 At Diénay: see Lettres, CLI (October 17, 1890), CLVII (October 26,1890), C L X X V I (August 31,1893) for references to trips.

6 See Lettres, CXI (expects to be in Pau September 2-5,1889), CXXIV (August 24,1890, has just been to Pau), C X X V (August 28,1890, will visit Cherfils in Pau for two or three days). 7 For plans for visits see Lettres, CLV (1890), CLVI (1890), CLIX (July 6, 1891), C L X I X (August, 1892), C L X X (August 16, 1892), CLXXI, CLXXIII, C L X X I V ; for references to past visits, CLVII (October 26, 1890). 8 For trip in the tilbury see Lettres, CXXVIII (September 26,1890) to CLIV (October 19,1890). 9 For plans see letters to Boldini, Lettres, C X I (August, 1889, Cauterets), CXII (August, 1889), and to Bartholomé, CXIII (August 19,1889). For trip letters to Bartholomé, CXIV (September 8,1889, Madrid), C X V (September 18,1889, Tangiers). 10 See Lettres, L X X V I I (August, 1885), L X X X (August, 1885). 11 January, 1886, trip to Naples: see Lettres, L X X X V I I I to XC. September, 1890, brief trip to Geneva to see Achille, who was not well: see Lettres, C X X V . August 31,1893, to Interlaken, where Edmond Morbilli, Thérèse's husband, was ill: see Lettres, C L X X V I . 12 See Lettres, CIII, CIV (August 30, 1888), CV (September 6, 1888), CVII (September 9, 1888), CX (August 14,1889), CXI (August, 1889), CXII (August, 1889), CXIII (August 19, 1889), C X X I I (August 16, 1890), CXXIII (August 18, 1890), CXXIV (August 24, 1890), C X X V (August 28, 1890), C X X V I (September 11,1890), CXXVII, CLXII (August 1,1891). 13 See note 6. 14 See Lettres, CLVIII (September 4,1890). 15 See Lettres, CXXIV (August 24, 1890, has just been to Lourdes) ; J. Fevre, Mon Oncle Degas (Geneva, 101. 16 Lettres, L X I X , p. 96. I have translated "assemblait" as "makes connections." 17 M. Joyant, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 18641901, Peintre (Paris: H. Floury, 1926), p. 123. 18 D. Cooper, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1956), p. 86, from Joyant, op. cit., p. 130. 19 For example, the head in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel S. White III, Ardmore, Pa. 20 L. 1140, owner unknown.

Notes

96 21 Even stronger in charcoal preparatory drawing: Sale III: 302, owner unknown. Another related pastel is L. 1134. 22 L. 951 bis, owner unknown. 23 Lettres, L X X X V . September, p. n o ; Degas had seen her in Sigurd. 24 In a sonnet dedicated to her as Brunhilde in Sigurd (Huits Sonnets d'Edgar Degas [New York, 1946], VII, p. 37), Degas wrote: "Diadème dorant cette rose pâleur." 25 L . Browse, Degas Dancers (London, 1949), p. 61. 26 Fevre, op. cit., p. 70, writes that Degas thought Quentin de la Tour had exceptional qualities and that he used to say his self-portrait was a masterpiece. Degas after his father's death had to sell several pastels by de la Tour (Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 173). He kept a pastel by Perronneau (Sale Degas Collection: no. 4), which appears in the background of one portrait of Thérèse de Gas Morbilli (plate 57). J.-E. Blanche, "Portraits by Degas," Formes, no. 12 (February, 1931), p. 22, wrote, however, that Degas admired de la Tour more than he did Perronneau. 27 Browse, op. cit., p. 61. 28 Ibid., p. 351, no. 39a. She believes the dancer to be Mme Sangalli on the assumption that it is from 1876. It might also be Mile Sanlaville. See Appendix B. 29 The other version is L. 971, Mrs. Huttleston Rogers collection, New York. 30 Browse, op. cit., pp. 60-61. The date she gives for the work of 1880 seems stylistically improbable. 31 L. 866, Los Angeles County Museum. 32 Lettres, L X X V , n.d., p. 101. 33 Lettres, LVII, August 22,1884, pp. 83-84; LXII, p. 88; L X X I V , 1885, p. 100; all are to Henri Rouart. 34 Lettres, LXII, p. 88. 35 Lettres, LXIII, p. 90. 36 For four articles on this material see O. Rayet, "Les Figurines de Tanagra," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 2® serie, Vols. XI and XII (1875). 37 I published the same conclusions in "Mme Henri Rouart and Hélène by Edgar Degas," Bulletin of the Art Division, Los Angeles County Museum, no. 8 (Spring, 1956), pp. 13-17. 38 Lettres, L X X I V , p. 100. The letter can be dated 1885 by the reference to an exhibition of portraits; see

L'Artiste, 9e serie, Vol. XXIII (October, 1885), part 2, p. 50. 39 BN carnet, 6, formerly DE, pp. 207-204; L. 870, 870 bis, 871; drawings Sale IV: 135a, b. 40 This visit is the only one recorded in his letters : see Lettres, LXVIII, October, 1884, to Durand-Ruel, pv 9541 J.-E. Blanche, Portraits of a Lifetime, tr. and ed. by W . Clement (New York: Coward-McCann, [1938]) has described life there. 42 Lettres, L X X X V , to Ludovic Halévy, p. no. 43 Reproduced in Lettres, plate IX, p. 105. 44 Lettres, LXVIII, p. 95 : "Quel beau pays." 45 C. Pissarro, Letters to His Son Lucien, tr. by Lionel Abel (New York: Pantheon Books, 1943), p. 73. 46 G. Rivière, Mr. Degas, Bourgeois de Paris (Paris : H. Floury, 1935), p. 92. 47 A . Gide, The Journals of —, tr. by Jusin O'Brien, Vol. I, 1889-1913 (New York: Knopf, 1949), p. 118. Quoted by permission. 48 Lettres, L X X X V , September, 1885, to Ludovic Halévy, p. 109. 49 W . Sickert, "Degas," Burlington Magazine, Vol. X X X I (November, 1917), p. 184. 50 J.-E. Blanche, De David à Degas (Paris : EmilePaul Frères, 1927), p. 296. 51 Sickert, op. cit., p. 184. 52 Daniel Halévy wrote a note on this pastel as recently as February 4, 1953, for the Rhode Island School of Design Museum: see " A Note on Degas' Pastel, 'Six Friends of the Artist,' " Museum Notes, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Vol. X (May, 1953), p. 4. 53 He was at school with Marcel Proust.

CHAPTER FIVE

1894-1905

1 M. Bénézit, Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs (Paris: France Librarie Griind, 1952), as 1889 or 1890. 2 The Correspondence of Berthe Morisot, compiled and ed. by Denis Rouart, tr. by Betty W . Hubbard (London: Percy Lund Humphries, 1957), p. 168. Quotations by permission of publisher. Eugène died April 13.

Notes 3 J. Fevre, Mon Oncle Degas, ed. by Pierre Borel (Geneva, 1949), p. 102. 4 Ibid., p. 92. 5 Morisot, op. cit., p. 187; she died March 2. 6 Fevre, op. cit., p. 103, for letter, November 18, 1895, about Marguerite's death; Lettres, CXCII, p. 208, announcement to Désiré Dihau of Achille's death. 7 P. Lafond, Degas (Paris, 1918), Vol. I, p. 90. 8 Lettres, CCXXXIII, p. 235. 9 Lettres, CCXX, p. 225. 10 A. Vollard, Degas, an Intimate Portrait (New York: Greenberg, 1927), p. 21. 11 Told me in conversation by the late Mme Elie Halévy, Ludovic's daughter-in-law. 12 P. Valéry, Degas Danse Dessin (Paris, 1938), p. 16; English translation by D. Paul in P. Valéry, Degas Manet Morisot, ed. by Jackson Mathews (New York: Bollingen Series X L V : 12, i960), p. 9. Reprinted by permission. 13 Ibid., French edition, p. 13; English translation, p. 8. 14 J.-E. Blanche, Propos de Peintre: de David à Degas (Paris: Emile-Paul Frères, 1919), p. 270, wrote "M. Henri Rouart, malade et pouvant à peine se lever d'un fauteuil." 15 P. Valéry, op. cit., French edition, p. 19; English translation, p. 11. 16 A. Gide, The Journals of —, tr. by Justin O'Brien, Vol. I, 1889-1913 (New York: Knopf, 1949), p. 239. 17 Ibid., p. 154. Quoted by permission. 18 Ibid., p. 252. 19 Lettres, CCXXIV bis, March 16, 1900, pp. 228229. 20 L. 1437-L. 1444. 21 C. Pissarro, Letters to His Son Lucien, tr. by Lionel Abel (New York: Pantheon Books, 1943), p. 323. 22 I suggest one in my Ph.D. dissertation, "The Group Portraits of Edgar Degas," Radcliffe College, 1953, pp. 186-188, on the basis of a stylistic analysis; I follow it here but without the same conviction of its validity. 23 L.1437-1439. 24 L. 1442-1444. 25 L. 1440,1441.

97 26 L. 1451,1452. 27 See Lettres, CLXXI, n.d., to Alexis Rouart, p. 226, for Degas' reference to the daughter Madeline. 28 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 163. 29 Lemoisne. Vol. I, between pp. 220 and 223, reproduces a photograph of Degasat Henri Rouart's home at La Queue-en-Brie with four Rouart sons (Alexis clearly recognizable second from right, and Louis probably second from left) and three daughters-in-law (Julie Manet Rouart at left, Mme Alexis and Mme Louis Rouart) and a child, presumably Madeline Rouart. 30 Lettres, CXCIV, May 25,1896, p. 209. EPILOGUE

1 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 202. 2 F. Fosca, Degas (Paris : Société des Trente, 1921), p. 85. 3 Ibid., p. 86. 4 Reproduced in Lemoisne, Vol. I, opposite p. 200. 5 W. Sickert, "Degas," Burlington Magazine, Vol. X X X I (November, 1917), p. 191. 6 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 200. 7 P. Valéry, Degas Danse Dessin (Paris, 1938), p. 175; English translation by D. Paul in P. Valéry, Degas Manet Morisot, ed. by Jackson Mathews (New York: Bollingen Series X L V : 12, i960), p. 99. Reprinted by permission. 8 Jeanne Fevre, Mon Oncle Degas, ed. by Pierre Borel (Geneva, 1949), p. 143. 9 BN carnet, 28, reproduced in Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 23. 10 Ibid., p. 24. 11 Fevre, op. cit., p. 101. 12 Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 198. 13 J.-E. Blanche, Propos de Peintre de David à Degas (Paris: Emile-Paul Frères, 1919), p. 291. 14 Valéry, op. cit., French edition, p. 68; English translation, p. 39. 15 Ibid., French edition, p. 143; English translation, p. 82. 16 G. Rivière, Mr. Degas, Bourgeois de Paris (Paris : H. Floury, 1935), p. 103.

Books and articles which have contributed direcdy to this work are acknowledged in the footnotes. This is a selection of a few books which are in print or of material indispensable for the study of the work of Degas.

CATALOGUES OF DEGAS' W O R K

(1)

Lemoisne, Paul-André, Degas et son oeuvre (Paris: Paul Brame et C. M. de Hauke, copyright 1946), 1st 4 vols, printed 1947-1949. (A catalogue raisonné, so far of the paintings, pastels, and some colored drawings; subsequent volumes will cover any omissions and the drawings.) (2) Atelier Edgar Degas, [4] Catalogue[s] des Tableaux, Pastels et Dessins par Edgar Degas et provenant de son atelier dont la . . . vente aux enchères publiques, après décès de l'artiste, aura lieu à Paris, Galerie Georges Petit. i r e Vente . . . les Lundi 6, Mardi 7, et Mercredi 8 mai 1918 2me Vente . . . les Mercredi 11, Jeudi 12, et Vendredi 13 décembre 1918 3me Vente . . . les Lundi 7, Mardi 8, et Mercredi 9 avril 1919 4me et dernière Vente . . . les Mercredi 2, Jeudi 3, et Vendredi 4 juillet 1919. (3) Exposition Degas, au profit de la ligue francoanglo-américaine contre le cancer. Peintres, pastels et dessins, sculptures, eaux-fortes, lithographies et monotypes. Ouverte du 12 avril au 2 mai 1924. Introduction by Daniel Halévy, catalogue by Marcel Guérin (Paris: Editions des Galerie Georges Petit, 1924). (4) Catalogue of the Succession de M. René de Gas, Tableaux, Pastels, Dessins par Edgar Degas, sale Hotel Drouot (Paris, November 10,1927). (5) Exposition Degas, Portraitiste, Sculpteur, preface by Paul Jamot, catalogue by Charles Sterling and Paul Vitry (Paris: Musée de l'Orangerie, I 93 1 )-

(6)

Collection de Mlle J. Fevre, nièce du peintre, Catalogue des Tableaux, Aquarelles, Pastels, Dessins, Estampes, Monotypes par Edgar Degas, Vente à la Galerie Charpentier (Paris, June 12, 1934). (2)—(6) catalogue and illustrate drawings not yet in(i). (7) Delteil, Loys, Edgar Degas, le Peintre-graveur illustré, (Paris : published by the author, 1919). (8) Guérin, Marcel, Additions et corrections au cat. par L. D. [Loys Delteil] des graveurs de Degas, manuscript, Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. (9) Estampes par Edgar Degas, Catalogue des EauxFortes, Vernis-Mous, Aqua-Tintes, lithographies et monotypes par Edgar Degas et provenant de son atelier, dont la vente aux enchères publiques, après décès de l'artiste, aura lieu à Paris, Galerie Manzi-Joyant, les Vendredi 22 et Samedi 23 Novembre 1918. (10) Rewald, John, Degas, Wor\s in Sculpture, a complete catalogue (New York: Pantheon Books, 1944) ; Degas: Sculpture, the Complete Wor\s, photographed by Leonard von Matt, introduction and critical catalogue by John Rewald (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1956; London: Thames and Hudson, ca. 1957). ( 1 1 ) Mr. Helmut Ripperger, Librarian, M. Knoedler & Co., New York, is keeping a catalogue of all casts of Degas' sculpture.

CATALOGUES OF DEGAS' COLLECTION

(12)

Collection Edgar Degas, Catalogue des Tableaux Modernes et Anciens, Aquarelles, Pastels, Dessins par . . . Oeuvre importantes de Delacroix et

Selected Bibliography

102

(13)

de Ingres composant la collection Edgar Degas et dont la vente aux enchères publiques après son décès aura lieu à Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, les Mardi 26 et Mercredi 27 mars 1918. Collection Edgar Degas Estampes, Catalogue des Estampes Anciennes et Modernes . . . composant la Collection Edgar Degas dont la vente aux enchères publiques, après son décès, aura lieu à Paris, à l'Hôtel Drouot, Salle no. 6, les Mercredi 6 et Jeudi 7 novembre 1918. WRITINGS BY DEGAS

(14)

Lettres de Degas, collected and annotated by Marcel Guérin, preface by Daniel Halévy : (a) (Paris : Bernard Grasset, 1931) ; (b) new edition with 62 added letters: from Paul Poujaud to Marcel Guérin, and from George Moore to Daniel Halévy, and with some reminisences of Degas by Daniel Halévy (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1945) ; (c) English translation by Marguerite Kay, additional letters from Tissot to Degas (Oxford: B. Cassirer, 1947; New York: Studio Publications, [1948]). There are other letters in (1) and (19) as well as others as yet unpublished. (15) Huit Sonnets d'Edgar Degas, preface by Jean Nepveu Degas (Paris: La Jeune Paque; New York, Wittenborn and Co., 1946). (16) Degas, Edgar, Album des Dessins, preface by Daniel Halévy (Paris : Quatre Chemins Editart, 1949). (Only completely published notebook by Degas.) (17) Boggs, Jean Sutherland, "Degas Notebooks at the Bibliothèque Nationale," I, Group A [1853— 1858]" The Burlington Magazine, Vol. C, no. 662 (May, 1958), pp. 163-171; "II, Group B [1858-1861]," no. 663 (June, 1958), pp. 196-205; "III, Group C [1863-1886],"no. 664 (July, 1958), pp. 240-246. (These articles provide a preliminary check list to the twenty-eight notebooks by Degas in the Cabinet des Estampes of the Bibliothèque Nationale. It is hoped that one of its curators will someday publish the definitive work on them.)

(18) There are two unpublished notebooks in the Cabinet des Dessins of the Louvre and four in a private collection in Paris. WRITINGS ON DEGAS' F A M I L Y

(19)

Fevre, Jeanne, Mon Oncle Degas, Souvenirs et documents inédits, ed. by Pierre Borei (Geneva : Pierre Cailler, 1949). (20) Raimondi, Riccardo, Degas e la sua Famiglia in Napoli, 779^-/9/7 (Naples: published by the author, 1958). (21) Rewald, John, "Degas and His Family in New Orleans," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6th series, Vol. X X X (August, 1946), pp. 105-126. MONOGRAPHS

(22) Browse, Lillian, Degas Dancers (London : Faber and Faber, 1949; New York: Studio Publications, [194- ]). (23) Cabanne, Pierre, Edgar Degas (Paris: Editions Pierre Tisné, 1957); English translation by Michael Lee Landa (New York: Universe Books, 1958). (24) Halévy, Daniel, Degas parle (Paris and Geneva : La Palatine, i960). (25) Jamot, Paul, Degas (Paris : Editions de la Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1924). (26) Lafond, Paul, Degas (Paris: H. Floury, 19181919), 2 vols. (27) Lemoisne, Paul-André, Degas et son oeuvre (Paris: Librairie Pion, [ca. 1954]). (The text from [1], Vol. I.) (28) Rich, Daniel Catton, Degas (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1951). (29) Rouart, Denis, Degas à la recherche de sa technique (Paris: H. Floury, 1945). (30) Valéry, Paul, Degas Danse Dessin: (a) (Paris: Ambroise Vollard, 1936); (b) (Paris: Gallimard, 1938) ; (c) English translation by David Paul in Degas Manet Morisot (New York: Bollingen Series X L V : 12, i960), pp. 5-102.

cm/ienJ " 7 7 graduate of the Polytechnique, engineer, collector; amateur painter who exhibited in all but the seventh Impressionist exhibition; was at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand with the painter, was his captain in the artillery during Franco-Prussian War, and was probably

ROUART, HENRI STANISLAS L - 293>373>

(right)>

Appendix

129

his closest friend all his life. See A. Alexandre, "La collection de M. Henri Rouart," Les Arts (April, June, and July, 1902) ; P. Valéry, Degas Danse Dessin (Paris, 1938) ; catalogues of sales, Collection Henri Rouart (Paris : Galerie Manzi-Joyant, December 9-18, 1912). ROUART, M M E HENRI

L . 766 bis, Sale IV: 264b, 276b (right) wife of Henri Rouart ROUART, LOUIS

1872-

L . 1437-1444 (right) fourth son of Henri Rouart; art critic; one of founders of review L'Occident; editor and director of Art Catholique, which encouraged a revival of religious art; married daughter of painter Henri Lerolle. ROUART, M M E LOUIS

L . 1437-1444 (left) daughter of Henri Lerolle, a friend of the painter's; married fourth son of Henri Rouart. On her father, to whom Degas wrote the moving letter of August 21, 1884, see Maurice Denis in Revue de Paris, Vol. X X X V I I (November 10,1930). ROUART, MADELINE

L . 1450,1451 (right) daughter of M. and Mme Alexis Rouart. Degas wrote : "Cette Madeline. Je passerais des journées entières à causer avec elle: quelle de particulière," in Lettres, C C X X I (n.d.), p. 226. Paris 1784—Paris I8Ô9( ?) Sale IV: m ; BN carnet, 13 (1856) between pp. 21 and 22 seems younger than Rouget's age suggests. Could it be a son of this painter? See Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 22, for Degas' reference to Rouget (1858). ROUGET, GEORGES

RUELLE

L . 102 cashier in his father's bank RUTTÉ, M M E DE

L . 369 sister of Alsatian painters Emmanuel and Jean Benner, who were part of the group which met with the Dihaus at mère Lefebvre's. SABINE ( N E Y T )

Sale IV: 252, 272a drawing, Sale IV: 252, is inscribed by Degas: "Ma vieille bonne Sabine, morte à Paris, 21 rue Pigalle."

Appendix

130 SALLANDRY Or SALANDRI

L.813, 882(?) Browse, p. 62, has not been able to find anything about Sallandry although she was presumably a ballerina. A. Levinson in Comcedia Vol. XIII (September 26, 1931), wrote of her as a mime whom Degas had placed in the middle of some of his oils. Identification is Lemoisne's (L. 813), which, if correct, must also be applied to L. 882. Catalogue of Exposition Degas (Paris: Galeries Georges Petit, 1924), no. 155, p. 54, lists L. 813 as Mile Sallandry. SALLE, M L L E

L. 813 (?), 868,882 (?), 897(F), 898(F) dancer; danced between 1888 and 1919; probably apprenticed before 1888; 1895 did seconds sujets; known as a mime. Degas wrote Ludovic Halévy about renewal of her contract November, 1883 {Lettres, XLVII, p. 73) and to Bartholomé in 1893 (Lettres, C L X X V , p. 196) about a bust of her by Bartholomé. See Browse, p. 61. SANGALLI, RITA Milan 1849L . 897,898(F) Italian; dancer at the Opéra; created the role of Sylvia in the Sylvia ou la Nymphe de Diane of Delibes. Degas mentioned her in a letter from New Orleans in 1872 to Désiré Dihau (Lettres, I, p. 20) : "Mlle Sangalli restera l'hiver sans doute. Je pourrai donc en jouir à mon retour." If she were there when Degas returned she seems to have left soon after. See Browse, p. 57 and note 2; and Guérin, p. 20, note 1, of Lettres. Browse, p. 351, no. 39a, identifies L. 898 as Mile Sangalli on the assumption that it is from 1876 rather than 1887 and that the traditional title for the work as "Mlle S., première danseuse à l'Opéra" is correct. SANLAVILLE, M L L E

L. 897,898(F) Sanlaville is not mentioned as a possible sitter for L. 897 and 898, but she was dancing at the Opéra in 1887. Degas dedicated a sonnet to her {Huit Sonnets d'Edgar Degas [New York, 1946], sonnet VI, p. 35) in which he referred to her gifts for pantomime. She was dancing principal roles at the Opéra 1876; danced Harlequin Senior in Les Jumeaux de Bergame at the Théâtre Italien 1886. See Browse, pp. 57-58. SERMET, GENERAL BARON DE

Lemoisne, Degas (Paris: L'Art de Notre Temps, 1912), p. 28, says Degas made a portrait in the early sixties of de Sermet, then a lieutenant in the artillery on guard at Versailles, which Lemoisne described as "étude très curieuse et très poussée, aussi consciencieusement traitée, et qui appartient à Mme la baronne de Sermet." It is otherwise unknown to me. In a letter to Tissot, English translation of Letters, tr. by M. Kay (London, 1947), letter VIII (1873?), there is a reference to de Sermet. SICKERT, WALTER RICHARD

L. 824 (left)

Munich 1860-1942

Appendix English painter who was a friend of Blanche and others who spent time at Dieppe; an admirer of Degas and strongly influenced by him. See J.-E. Blanche, Portraits of a Lifetime, tr. and ed. by W. Clement (New York: Coward-McCann, [1938]), pp. 45-50; L. Browse, Walter Sickert (London : Hart-Davis, i960). SOUQUET

L. 186 (above Dihau) Catalogue of Exposition Degas, Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, 1924, no. 30, p. 30, says he was a friend of Degas and Bonnat, and used to go to the Crémerie Lefèvre, rue de la Tour d'Auvergne. TISSOT, JAMES Nantes 1836—Buillon 1902 L. 175; Sale III: 158; BN carnet, 8, p. 31 painter who left France in some disgrace and settled in England after the FrancoPrussian War; studied with Lamothe and Flandrin; letters from Degas to Tissot are published in English edition of Letters, tr. by M. Kay (London, 1947) : I, III, VI-VIII, XII, XIV, X V . Lemoisne, Vol., p. 230, note 45, quotes a complete letter from Tissot to Degas from September 18, i86o(?). See J. Laver, Vulgar Society: the Romantic Career of James Tissot (London: Constable and Co., 1936). TOURNY, JOSEPH-GABRIEL Paris 1817—Montpellier 1880 D. 4; L. 26 (Mr. and Mrs. David J. Stralem collection), 301 painter and engraver; 1844 won second Prix de Rome for engraving, won first in 1847; 1856-57 in Rome, where he used to see Degas; made debut in Salon 1857. Lemoisne, Degas (Paris, 1912), p. 20, said Tourny was sent to Rome in 1856 by Thiers to make copies of Sistine ceiling in watercolor. Degas wrote his addresses in notebooks: BN carnets, 20 (1854), p. 86, as 22 rue St. Jacques [Paris 5®]; 18 (1858-1859), p. 105, as 39 rue de Laval; 22 (ca. 1876), p. 161, as 33 San Geronimo, Madrid. Lemoisne, Vol. I, p. 227, note 24, quotes from a friendly, somewhat paternal, letter from Tourny to Degas July 15,1858. BN carnet, 16 (1859), p. 142, has a note to remind Tourny to write. ULYSSE

drawing (ex-collection Marcel Guérin) inscription: "Portrait d'Ulysse, domestique de mon oncle Bellelli, Florence, 1859." VALERNES, EVARisTE DE Avignon 1816—Carpentras 1896 L. 116 (left), 177 painter who worked in Delacroix's studio; close friend of Degas, as Lettres reveal. Degas seems to have known him in 1855; see BN carnet, 10 (1855), which gives his address as 16 rue de Seine [Paris 6 e ]. See Fevre, pp. 77-88; J. L. Vaudoyer, Beautés de la Provence (Paris: B. Grasset, 1943), pp. 77-84. VALPINÇON, HENRI

L. 270,281 (infant) son of Degas' friend, Paul Valpinçon.

132

Appendix

VALPINÇON, HORTENSE

L. 206,722,857(F) ; bust unfinished daughter of Degas' friend, Paul Valpinçon; became Mme Jacques Fourchy 1885. Posed for other works which have not been identified. L. 857 may be one she described to S. Barazetti of herself seated on a park bench. See S. Barazzetti, "Degas et ses amis Valpinçon," Beaux-Arts (August 21, August 28, and September 4, 1936). See Lettres, L X I I I - L X V I (1884), pp. 89-93, f ° r efforts to make a bust of Hortense. died 1894 L . 99 (David Daniels collection), 197, 281 (right); drawing (John S. Thacher collection) childhood friend of Degas; son of collector of works of Ingres; lived in Normandy at Ménil-Hubert, where Degas used to visit him regularly. See Lettres and BN carnet, 1 (ca. 1860-1861), pp. 160-163, for a description of a walking trip with Paul Valpinçon around Ménil-Hubert. See S. Barazzetti, "Degas et ses amis Valpinçon," Beaux-Arts (August 21, August 28, and September 4,1936).

VALPINÇON, PAUL

VALPINÇON, M M E PAUL

drawing (John S. Thacher collection) wife of painter's school friend. In BN carnet, 1 (ca. 1860-1861), p. 96, Degas planned a portrait of her: "Pour le portrait de la femme de Paul en deuil avec son chapeau et surtout la figure bien bordée"; this may never have been painted. VILLETTE, M M E OLIVIER (ALICE) L ' 303

from Lille, a friend of the Dihaus with whose family Degas used to stay in Lille. WOLKONSKA, MLLE N .

D.7 nothing known of her Constantinople L . 831 still-life painter; won medals at Salon. Vollard, p. 117, quotes Degas : "C'est comme mon ami Zakarian : avec une noix, un grain de raisin et un couteau, il en a pour travailler pendant vingt ans en changeant seulement son couteau de place." (Reprinted by permission.) In a notebook from 1878-1884 (BN carnet, 9) Degas refers to him p. 189, and on p. 205 to smoking as a subject with possibilities: "Fumée des fumeurs, pipes, cigarettes, cigares." ZACHARIAN

Venice 1841—Paris 1917 projected bust painter; came to Paris 1874; used to go to mère Lefebvre's, rue de la Tour des Dames; knew Renoir and Ellen Andrée (see Vollard, p. 135) ; Degas owned two of his works (Sale Degas Collection: nos. 246,247) ; exhibited fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth Impressionist exhibitions. See Lemoisne, Vol. I, pp. 59,129. ZANDOMENEGHI, FEDERIGO

fnJex

About, Edmond, 8711. 41 Absinthe, V, 49 Adhémar, J., 8911. 85 Alley, Ronald, 53 Altès, Joseph Henri, 92n. 40, 108 Andrée, Ellen, 49-50, 59, 94n. 20, 108, pis. 108, 109, n o Antigone, 80 "Ape." See Pellegrini, Carlo Art Catholique, 75 Artiste, V, 15 Assisi, 6, 80 Astruc, Chief Rabbi Elie-Aristide, 34-35» Io8 > pl- 6 9 At the Bourse, 54, pl. 101 At the Louvre (Miss Cassatt), 51, pl. in Auber, Daniel, 108 Balfour, Estelle Musson. See Musson, Estelle Balfour, Josephine, 21, 38, 108 Balfour, L. David, 21, 108 Barili, Mme, 108 Barrias, Félix-Joseph, 5, 6, 7, 85 (chap, i, n. 4) Bartholome, Paul-Albert, 36, 56, 6061, 73, 80, 108 Bartholomé, Mme Paul-Albert, 60, 109 Baudelaire, Charles, 24 Bayonne: Bonnat Museum, 19 Bazaine, Maréchal Achille François, 109 Beauregard, Angèle, 109 Beauregard, Gabrielle, 109 Bell, Mathilde Musson, 38, 40, 109, pl. 79

Bell, William Alexander, 38, 109 Bellelli, Enrichetta. See Dembowski, Baroness Ercole Bellelli, Baron Gennaro, 10-16, 109, pl. 27 Bellelli, Giovanna, 10-16, 20, 88n. 66, n o , pis. 27, 28 Bellelli, Giulia, 10-16, 19, 21, 88nn. 66 and 69, n o , pis. 27, 28 Bellelli, Laura De Gas, 10-16, 58, 109, n o , pi. 27 Bellelli Family, 1 1 - 1 6 , 2 1 , 3 1 , 5 8 , 88n. 69, pl. 27 Bellelli Sisters, 16, 20, pi. 28 Bellet-du-Poisat, Jean-Pierre-JosephAlfred, n o Bénédite, Léonce, 86n. 26 Bernhardt, Sarah. See Clairin Bertaut, Jules, 118 Blanche, Mme Émile-Antoine, 72 Blanche, Jacques-Emile, 4, 23, 70-72, 81, 110, pl. 121 Bolâtre, 54, 57, 59, 110, pl. 101 Boldini, Giovanni, 4, 61 Bonjour Monsieur Courbet. See Courbet, Gustave Bonnat, Léon, 4, 19, 52, 62, 110, pl. 30; Portrait of Mrs. Shaw, pl. 106 Boo\ of Proportions (by Jean Cousin), 6 Boston: Muséum of Fine Arts, 17 Bourg-en-Bresse, 21 Boussard, 1 1 1 Boussod-Valadon, 69 Bracquemond, Félix, 73 Brandon, M., n i Brescianino, 86n. 16 Brignole-Sale, Geronima, ancl

Daughter. See van Dyck, Anthony Brignole-Sale, Marchesa. See van Dyck, Anthony Bronzino, 12; Girl with a Missal, 12, pl. 23; Lucrezia Panciatichi, 12; Sculptor, 6, 86n. 17, pl. 5 Broutelles, de, 1 1 1 Browse, Lillian, 65 Burtin, Mme Julie, 17-18, i n , pis. 35» 3 6 Café Guerbois, 22, 36 Cafe mère Lefebvre, 108, 116, 118, 128, 129, 131, 132 Callias, H. de, 89n. 77 Cambridge, Massachusetts: Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 17 Camus, Dr., 26, m Camus, Mme, 22, 26, 31, 59, i n , pis. 65, 66 Canrobert, Maréchal François Certain, 1 1 2 Cantacuzène, Princess, 86n. 26 Cantrel, Émile, 89n. 78 Capece Minutolo, Duchess of San Valentino. See Montejasi-Cicerale, Elena Carafa. See Montejasi-Cicerale Carcassonne, 61 Cardone, Signora Pasquale Russo. See Montejasi-Cicerale, Camilla Caricature, Degas' interest in, 53-54 Carnesechi, Pietro. See Puligo, Domenico Caron, Rose, 60, 64-65, 69, 112, pl. 133

135

Index

136 Carpentras, 19, 61, 73 Carracciolo, Olga, 70 Carriage at the Races, 37, 46, 47, pi. 72 Cassatt, Mary, 50-52, 59, 60, 9411. 23, 112, pis. 110, HI, 113; SelfPortrait, 51, pi. 112 Cauterets, 61 Cavé, Albert, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 70-72, 112, pi. 99 Cavé, François, 1 1 2 Cavour, Conte Camillo di, 12 Cezanne, Paul, 1, 51, 55, 57, 63, 64, 69. 72» IX3> Pi- 9 6 Chabrier, Emmanuel, 92n. 40, 1 1 3 Challaire, Mme, 93n. 82, 1 1 3 Champfleury, 22 Chantilly: Condé Museum, 9 Charivari, le, 15, 53, 94n. 31 Charles of Amboise. See Solario, Andrea da Chassériau, Ernest, 86n. 26 Chassériau, Théodore, 17, 86n. 26 Cherfils, Alphonse, 61, 94n. 42, 1 1 3 Cherubini, 6-7 Chicago: Art Institute, 25 Cicerale. See Montejasi-Cicerale Clairin, 52; Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, 52, pi. 107 Clermont, Hermann de, 1 1 3 Clermont, Mme Hermann de, 114 Closier, Zoe. See Zoe (Closier) Clouet, François, 13 Copies by Degas: Bellini, Gentile( ? ), 89n. 87; Brescianino, 86n. 16; Bronzino, 6, 12, pi. 24; Cousin, 6; van Dyck, 13; Ingres, 6, 7; Leonardo, 6; Pontormo, 12, pi. 25; Puligo, Domenico, 6; Rembrandt, 11; Solario, Andrea da, 7; Titian, 11, pi. 19; Velasquez, 92n. 53 Corinth, battle of, 21 Corot, Camille, 8, 74 Cotton Market, 38-40, pi. 80 Courbet, Gustave, 2, 8, 13, 30, 32, 92n. 51; Bonjour Monsieur Courbet, 20; Mme Charles Maquet, 30 Cousin, Jean, 6 Couture, Thomas, 7

Cranach, Lucas, 32 Croquis Musicaux. See Daumier, Honoré Cubism, 72 Cuvelier, Joseph, death of, 34 Daguerreotype, 16-21 Dale, Chester, collection. See Washington, D. C.: National Gallery Daughter of Jephthah, 14 Daumier, Honoré, 2, 53, 54, 74, 94n. 31; The Orchestra (from Croquis Musicaux), 29, 92n. 41, pl. 59; Robert Macaire Boursier, 54, pl. 100 Davis, Mr. and Mrs. Richard S., collection, 8 Defonds, E., 89m 77 De Gas, Achille (1812-1875), 10, 39, 95 n - 45 De Gas, Achille (1838-1893), 5, 7, 8, 10, 28, 38, 43, 44, 73, 86n. 26, 95n. 1 1 , 114, pis. 10, 81 De Gas, Auguste, 9, 1 1 , 12, 22, 27, 56, 114, pis. 58, 115; background, 10; death, 43, 95n. 45; education of son, 9; financial circumstances, 44; friendship with Edgar, 22, 43; quotations from his letters, 1, 2, 6, 7, 12, 20; reconciliation with Edgar» 9 De Gas, Aurora Freppa, 115 Degas, Edgar, biography education: art, 5, 85 (chap, i, n. 1); Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 5, 85 (chap, i, n. 6); law school, 5, 7; lycée, 5, 85 (chap, i, n. 1) family: death of father, 43; deaths of relatives, 73; family life, 7-10, 43-44; reconciled with father, 9 friendships: deaths, 73; Halévys, 45, 73; Manets, 22-28, 30-34; Rouarts, 45, 73-79; Valpinçons, 36-37» 73 personal: aging, 37, 38, 43, 73, 8081; bachelorhood, 45, 47, 60, 79; Dreyfus affair, 73; eyesight, trouble with, 38, 43, 61; financial difficulties, 44; religion, 21, 80-

81; Franco-Prussian War, 33-35 professional: Café Guerbois, 22, 36; Impressionist exhibitions, 1, 44-45, 60; Ingres, meeting with, 5 travel: Dieppe (1884), 70; general, 61; Italy (1856-1859), 5, 10-13, 87n. 37; Italy, later trips, 95n. 45; New Orleans (1872-1873), 38-42 Degas, Edgar, work artistic influences: Baroque period, 11; Bronzino, 6, 12, 13; caricature, 53-54; Cézanne, 51, 6364, 69; Chassériau, 86n. 26; Clouet, 13; Corot, 8; Courbet, 2, 7, 8, 13, 20, 30, 32; Daumier, 2, 29,53; Delacroix, 2,7; van Dyck, 13; Holbein, 13; Impressionism, I» 3» 36» 37» 40» 57» 8 5 (intra., n. 1 ) ; Ingres, 2,6-7, 8, n , 13,18, 30; Japanese prints, 54, 55, 58, 94n. 35; La Tour, g6n. 26; Manet, 22,32-33,39,41,45,92n. 53; Mannerists, 6-7, 8; Millet, 2, 8, 32; Monet, 1, 36, 57-58; Perronneau, p6n. 26; Perugino, 8; photography, 16-21, 23, 29, 3839» 55-56» 94 n - 3 8 ; Pissarro, 36, 57-58, 76; Raphael, 8; Renoir, 51; Titian, 11; Toulouse-Lautrec, 62; Velasquez, 92n. 53 clothes, attitude toward, 50 copies, 6, 7, 11, 12 periods, characteristics of, 3, 41-42, 43» 53» 6 l ~ 6 2 » 7 ^ 7 9 portraiture, attitudes toward, 1-3, 6-7, 30, 52, 77; commissions, 1, 34, 52; dating, 3, 105-106; quality, 4, 78 self-portraits, 8-11, 19-20, 59, 9onn. 104 and 107, pis. 1 , 1 2 , 1 3 , r 1 4 » 5. 16, 32, 33, 34 subjects' awkwardness, attitude toward, 23 techniques: atmosphere, use of, 26, 35; body, 23, 39, 46, 49, 53, 6667,77; color, 21,67; composition, 28, 29, 37, 46-47, 66-67, 71-72;

Index hands, 17-18, 3 1 ; light, 26, 39; setting, 24, 26, 28, 31, 68; space, !5> 35» 37, 40, 41, 46-47, 775 squared drawings, 27 women, attitudes toward, 30-31, 50-53 De Gas, Edouard, 10, i i , 12, 45, 114, pi. 22 De Gas, Estelle Musson. See Musson, Estelle De Gas Frères, importers, 38, 39 De Gas, Gaston. See Musson, Gaston De Gas, Henri (1809-1879), 10, 4547> 59, 95 n - 45, " 4 , P1- 8 6 De Gas, Laura. See Bellelli, Laura De Gas De Gas, Lucy, 45-47, 9511. 45, 114, pi. 86 De Gas, Marguerite. See Fevre, Marguerite De Gas De Gas, Odile (1871-1936). See Musson, Odile Longer De Gas père Listening to Pagans, 2728, 56, pis. 58, 1 1 5 De Gas, René (1845-1921), 5, 7, 8, 10, 17, 27, 39, 43, 86n. 26, 93n. 82, 115, pis. 8, 9; business, 44; comments on Degas, 20, 37; marriage, 38, 44; in New Orleans, 38, 115; reconciliation with painter, 115; remarriage, 115 De Gas, René-Hilaire (1770-1858), 10, ii, 12, 87n. 37, 115, 125, pl. 20 De Gas, Rosa Adelaida Aurora. See Morbilli, Rosa Adelaida De Gas De Gas, Stefanina. See MontejasiCicerale, Stefanina De Gas De Gas, Thérèse. See Morbilli, Thérèse De Gas Delacroix, Ferdinand, 2, 3, 7, 890. 78; Baron Schwiter, 2-3, pi. 2 Delaunay, Elie, 4 Delteil, Loys, numbering of Degas' works: D. 1, 10, pi. 16; D. 2, 114; D. 3, 115; D. 4, 131, pi. 18; D. 7, 132; D. 12, 92n. 53; D. 13, 87n. 46; D. 14,122; D. 15,122; D. 16, 122; D. 17, 118; D. 19, 119; D. 20, 94n.

137 20, pi. 108; D. 29, 94n. 24, 112; D. 30, 94n. 24, 112; D. 55, 116 Dembowski, Baroness Ercole, 1 1 5 Dembowski, Mile, 115 Desboutin, Marcellin, 49, 94n. 42,116 Dieppe, 61, 70, 72 Dietz-Monin, Mme, 52-53, 57, 59, 116, pis. 104, 105 Dihau, Désiré, 28,29,39,41, 62,92n. 40, 116, pi. 60 Dihau, Marie, 28, 62-63, I J 6 , pi. 61 Diot, Gabrielle, 64, 116, pi. 137 Disdéri, Adolphe, 23 Dobigny, Emma, 64, 116 Dreyfus affair, 73 Dubourg, Victoria. See Fantin-Latour, Mme Ducros, M and Mme, 9m. 2 1 , 1 1 6 Durand-Gréville, Emile, 117 Durand-Ruel, Paul, 51,60 Duranty, Edmond, 26, 45, 57, 58, 68, 117, pl. 103 Duret, Théodore, 92n. 55 Ecclesiastes, 80 Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 7, 85 (chap. i, n. 6) Edward VII, 70 Ephrussi, Charles, 117 Exposition Universelle (1855), 5, 7 "Fagerolles," 71 Falzacappa, Comtesse Hélène. See Hertel, Hélène Fandango, le, 65 Fantin-Latour, M., 4, 17, 19, 23, 31, 89n. 77, Portrait of Mme FantinLatour, 31, 92n. 50 Fantin-Latour, Mme, 31, 48,117, pis. 50, 5 1 ; portrait by her husband, 92n. 50 Faure, Jean-Baptiste, 44 Femme à la Potiche, 41,47, 48, pl. 76 Fevre, Célestine, 28, 117, pl. 56 Fevre, Henri, 43,44,73 Fevre, Jeanne, 9,17,86n. 21 Fevre, Marguerite De Gas, 5, 7-10, r

7,43, 44,73,8i, 118, pis. 6,7

Fiocre, Eugénie, 92n. 43,118

Flandrin, Hippolyte, 5, 6, 9, 15, 85 (chap, i, n. 5), 89ml. 78 and 82 Florence, Italy, 10,11, 12 Forain, Jean-Louis, 73 Forestier, Anne-Marie-Julie, 87n. 32 Forestier Family. See Ingres, Jean August Dominique Fourchy, Mme Jacques. See Valpinçon, Hortense Fournaise, Mlle, 118 Franciabigio, 6, pl. 4 Franco-Prussian War, 33-35 Freppa, Giovanna Teresa Aurora. See De Gas, Aurora Freppa Friends on the Stage, 54, pl. 99 Gamby, Mme, 94n. 30 Ganay, Marquis Hubert de, collection, 8 Gard, 29, 92n. 40,118 Gatteaux Family. See Ingres, Jean August Dominique Gauguin, Paul, 4 Gaujelin, Josephine, 30, 31, 48, 54, 118, pis. 52, 53, 55 Gautier, Théophile, 89n. 78 Gavarni, Paul, 53, 94n. 32 Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 15 Geneva, 95n. 95 Genoa: Palazzo Rosso, 12-13 Gernsheim, Helmut, 55 Gervex, Henri, 70-72, 118 Gide, André, 71, 75-76 Giotto school, 6 Gironde, la, 33 Gobillard-Morisot, Yves, 27, 31, 61, 119, pis. 62, 63, 64 Goncourt, Edmond de, 43 Gonzales, Eva, 22, 24 Gouffé, 29, 92n. 40, 119 Gout (violinist), 92n. 40 Goya, Francisco, 32, 50 Greco, El, 34,74 Groult, M., 52 Guerbois, Café. See Café Guerbois Guérin, Marcel, 20 Guérin, Mme Marcel, 95n. 47 Guerrero, Marchesa (Lucy De Gas). See De Gas, Lucy

Index

138 Gulbenkian collection, 20 Guys, Constantin, 53, 94n. 33 Halévy, Daniel, 70-72,119, pi. 121 Halévy, Ludovic, 36, 54-57, 59, 60, 70-73, 119, pis. 99, 121; family of, 61 Helleu, Paul César, 80 Hertel, Mlle Hélène, 119 Hertel, Mme, 31-32,37, 41, 59, pl. 44 Hirsch, Alfonso, 119 Hiroshige, 54 History of Impressionism (by John Rewald), 46 Hogarth, William, 65 Hokusai, 54 Holbein, Hans, 13 Homer, 80 Howland, Mme, 61, 70, 119 Illustration, I', 15 Impresario, 2-3, pis. 94, 95 Impressionism, 1, 3, 36, 37, 40, 57, 85 (intro., n. 1 ) Impressionist Exhibitions, 1; first (1874), 44; second (1876), 44; third (1877), 44; fourth (1879), 44; fifth (1880), 44; sixth (1881), 44; seventh (1882), 44; eighth (1884), 60 Impressionists, 36, 57-58 Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique, 5, 7 - 9 , 1 1 , 1 3 , 1 5 , 1 7 , 1 8 , 7 4 , 85 (chap, i, n. 5), 86n. 26; Cherubini and the Muse, 6, 7; Comtesse de Broglie, 89n. 81; Forestier Family, 13, 88n. 71; Gatteaux Family, 13, pi. 26; Mlles. Harvey, 17, 9on. 89; M. Leblanc, 2-3, pl. 3; Mme Leblanc, 30, pl. 54; M. and Mme Ramel, 18, 9on. 98; Roger and Angelica, 6; Self-Portrait (1804), 9, 87n. 32, pl. 11; Valpinçon Bather, 6, 7 Interlaken, 95n. 11 Jacquet, M., 120 Jamot, Paul, 58 Japanese art, influence of, 54, 55, 58, 94n. 35

Jeanniot family, 61 Jeantaud, 35, 41, 92n. 66, 120, pl. 70 Jeantaud, Mme, 120 Kanzler, Mr. and Mrs. Ernest, collection, 64 Keene, Charles, 53, 94n. 33 Kiyonaga, 54 Lafond, Paul, 5, 61, 94nn. 33 and 42, 120 Lagrange, L.-M., 15 Lainé, 35, 41, 120, pl. 70 Lamothe, Louis, 4-7, 85 (chap, i, nn. 5 and 6) Lancien, 92n. 40,120 La Tour, Quentin de, 65, g6n. 26 Lautrec. See Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de Lear, King, 80 Le Bail, Louis, 93n. 76 Leblanc, M. and Mme. See Ingres, Jean August Dominique Leenhoß, Léon. See Manet, Edouard Lefebvre, Mère, café. See Café Mère Lefebvre Le Havre, 61 Lehmann, Henri, 15 Lemoisne [italics are Lesmoisne's numbering of Degas' works], 3, 6, 11, 26, 40, 60, 65, 78. Vol. II: L. i, 126; L. 2, pi. 1; L. 3, 87n. 33; L. 4, 33; L. 5, pi. 12; L. 6, 115, pl.9;L. 7 , 1 1 5 ; L. io, 87n. 39; L. 11, pi. 13; L. 12, 87n. 36; L. 13, 87n. 36; L. 19, 110; L. 26, 131; L. 27, 115, pi. 20; L. 30,114, pi. 10; L. 31, 87"- 44; L- 32, pl- 14; L• 33> " 4 5 L. 37, pl. 15; L. 41, 9in. 21, 116, 117; L. 42, 9m. 21, 116; L. 43, 9m. 21, 116; L. 44, 124; L. 45, 109; L. 50 bis, 125; L. 5/, 87n. 29; L. 53, pl. 25; L. 59,89n. 87; L. 60,118; L. 61, 118; L. 63, 88n. 66, n o ; L. 64, 88n. 66, n o ; L. 65, 88n. 66; L. 66, no; L. 68, 88n. 66; L. 69, 88n. 66, no; L. 79, 109, no, pl. 27; L. 89, 108, 124; L. 90, 118; L. 99, 9on. 101, 132; L. 102, 129; L. 103, 9on. 108;

L. 104, pl. 32; L. /05, pl. 33; L. 108, 9on. 97, 1 1 1 ; L. 109, 9on. 96, 125, pl. 37; L. HI, no, pl. 30; L. J 12, 123, pl. 31; L. 116, 131, pl. 34; L. 124, 93n. 1; L. 125, 119, pl. 44; L. 126, no, pl. 28; L. 127, 122, pl. 42; L. 131, 125, pl. 38; L. 132, 125; L. 133,110; L. 135,9in. 8,121 ; L. 137, 117, pl. 50; L. 146, 9211. 43,118; L. 147, 118; L. 149, 118; L. 163, 125; L. 164, 125, pl. 39; L. 765, 118, pl. 55; L. 166,118, pl. 53; L. 167, 118; L. 169, 124, pl. 29; L. 172, 116; L. 175.131» P1- 46; L. 176,131; L. 177, 9on. 106, 131; L. 178, 9m. 7, 125; L. 183, gin. 26, i n ; L. 185,118; L. 186, 108, 113, 116, 118-120, 127, 128,131, pl. 60; L. 187,116; L. 188, 128; L. 196, 106; L. 197, 132; L. 198,116; L. 206,132, pl. 73; L. 207, i n , pl. 65; L. 208, 9m. 28, i n ; L. 209, 9m. 28, n i ; L. 210, 9m. 28, i n ; L. 211, 9m. 28, i n ; L. 212, 9m. 28, i n ; L. 213, 119, pl. 64; L. 214, 119, pl. 62; L. 255,125, pl. 57; L. 256,114,127, pl. 58; L. 257,92n. 39, 114, 127; L. 263, 116, pl. 61; L. 265,121, pl. 68; L. 266, 121, pl. 67; L. 267, 121; L. 270, 131, pl. 71; L. 271, i n , pi. 66; L. 272, 93n. 16, 120; L. 274, pl. 75; L. 281,131,132, pl. 72; L. 287, 120, 121, pl. 70; L. 288, 108, 124, pl. 69; L. 293, 128; L. 301, 131; L. 302, 127; L. 303, 132; L. 305, 113, 126, pl. 76; L. 306, 126, pl. 77; L. 307, 114, pl. 81; L. 308, 114; L. 310, 108; L. 313, 93n. 81,109, 126, pl. 78; L. 314, 126; L. 3/5, 126; L. 3/6, 126; L. 318, 40, 93n. 78, 109, pl. 79; L. 3/9, 93n. 80, 109; L. 320, 109,114, 115, 126, pl. 80; L. 323, 108; L. 326,113, pl. 96; L. 327,124; L. 331, 118; L. 336,124, pl. 49; L. 339,93n. 18, 122; L. 341, 126; L. 345, 114, 127, pl. 115; L. 346, 127, L. 348, 9m. 21; L. 35S, 121; L. 360, i n ; L. 363, pl. 82; L. 364, 127, pl. 93; L. 365,127; L. 366,127, pl. 92; L. 367,

Index

139

127; L. 367 bis, 127; L. 368,120, pi. 88; L. 369,129, pi. 83; L. 371, 120; L• 373' 93 n * J 4, 128; L. 37«, 127; L. 392, 110, 123; L. 393, 108, 116; L. 394,114,pi. 86; L. 395,9411.42,116, 120; L. 407,127, pi. 98; L. 424,128, pi. 87; L. 438, pi. 85; L. 459,127; L. 440,120; L. 441,122, pi. 91; L. 442, 122, pi. 90; L. 443,122; L. 122, pi. 89; L. 463, pi. 84; L. 499, n o , 123, pi. 101; L. 508, 127; L. 5/7, i n , pi. 103; L. 518, 117; L. 5/9, 123, pi. 102; L. 520, 123; L. 526, 112,119, pi. 99; L. 532,108,112, pi. n o ; L. 533, 112; L. 534, 116, pi. 105; L. 536, 116, pi. 104; L. 5 S j , 112, pl. m ; L. ¡82,9411.24,112; L. 583, 9411. 24, 112; L. 637, 9511. 45, 124, pi. 114; L. 647, 9411. 42, 113, 120; L. 656,123 ; L. 656 bis, 123; L. 657, 123; L. 677, i n ; L. 692, 9411. 43, 127. Vol. III: L. 722, 132; pi. 125; L. 766 bis, 129, pi. 123; L. 796, 112, pi. 113; L. 797, pi. 132; L. 79S, pi. 131; L. #02, pi. 117; L. ^03, pi. 116; L. 573, 130, pi. 127; L. 824, n o , 112, 118, 119, 130, pi. 121; L. 831, 132, pi. 134; L. S57, 132; L. 862, 112, pi. 133; L. 866, 9611. 31, 128; L. 868, 130, pi. 126; L. 869, 128, pi. 124; L. 870, 9611.39,128; L. 870 bis, 9611. 39, 128; L. 871, 9611. 30,128; L. 882,130, pi. 128; L. 597, 130, pi. 129; L. 898, 130, pi. 130; L. 950,120, pi. 135; L. 957 bis, 9611. 22, 116; L. 952, 116; L. 97/, 9611. 29,122; L. 972,122, pi. 120; L. 995, 122, pi. 136; L . 7009, 116, pi. 137; L.

7022, 1 1 2 ; L.

1134,

9611. 2 1 ;

L.

1135, pi. 138; L. 1140, 9511. 20; L. 7776, 128, pi. 140; L. 7777,128; L. 1178,128, pi. 139, L. 1365, 117; L. 437> 97 - 3> 9> pi- M ! 9711.23,129; L. 1439, 9711. 23,129; L. 7440, 9711. 25, 129, pi. 143; L. 1441, 9711. 25, 129; L. 1442, 9711. 24, 129; L. 1443, 9711. 24, 129; L. 1444,9711.24,129, pi. 142; L. 7450, 128, 129, pi. 144; L. 1451, 97n. 26, I

n

2

I2

1

128,129; L. 1452, 9711. 26, 128. Sei? 73,9 2 n - 66 > 94 n - 42> I 2 0 > P ls 88, 135 Lerolle, Henri, 1, 4, 36, 60, 85 (chap. i, n. 5) Levert, Leopold, 121 Lévy, Emile, 23, 121 Lignola, Marchesa Ferdinando. See Bellelli, Giovanna Linet, 35, 41, 121, pl. 70 Lisle, Mme, 25, 27,121, pis. 67, 68 Lohengrin (by Wagner), 64 London: National Gallery, 2, 16; Tate Gallery, 53 Longer, Odile. See Musson, Odile Longer Loubens, M., 121 Loubens, Mme, 25, 27,41,121, pl. 68 Lourdes, 61, 81 Lycée Louis-le-Grand, 5,18,36 Macaire, Robert, Boursier. See Daumier, Honoré MacMahon, Maréchal Marie Edmé Patrice, 121 Maiuri, Signora Roberto. See Bellelli, Giulia Malheurs de la Ville d'Orléans, 43 Malo, Mlle, 52,63,122, pis. 89, 90,91 Manet, Edouard, 4, 7, 22-25, 3 2_ 37> 45, 52> 6 o , 73, 74, 8 9 n - 8 a , 9 i n n - 3 and 9, 122; pis. 42, 43; Au Jardin, 92a. 6^\Duret, 92a. 55; Léon Leenhoff Reading to Mme Manet, 41; Manet salon, 22-28, 30; Mme Manet at the Piano, 24; Music Lesson, 33, pl. 74; Olympia, 32; Parents, 18; Promenade (Mme Gamby), 94n. 30; Plums, 24; Velasquez's Infanta, 9211. 53; Woman with a Parrot, 33, pi. 47; Emile Zola, 32, pi. 45.

Manet, Mme Edouard, 2 2 - 2 5 , 4 1 , 1 2 2 > pl. 42 Manet, Eugène, 73, 93n. 18, 122 Manet, Mme Eugène. See Morisot, Berthe Manet, Julie. See Rouart, Julie Manet Manet Listening to His Wife Play the Piano, 23-24, pi. 42 Mannerists, 6-7, 8 Mante, Blanche, 66-67, 122; pi. 120 Mante Family, 62-67, 71, pi. 120 Mante, Mme, 66-67, 1 2 2 > P ' - 1 2 0 Mante, Suzanne, 66-67, I 2 2 > pi- 1 2 0 Manzi, 69,122, pi. 136 Maquet, Mme Charles. See Courbet, Gustave Marin, Mme. See Rouart, Hélène Martelli, Diego, 57, 59, 123, pl. 102 Masterpieces of Victorian Photography (by H. Gernsheim), 55 May, Ernest, 54, 57,59,123, pl. 101 May, Mme Ernest, 123 Mélida y Alinari, Enrique, 19, 123, pi. 31 Mellinet, General Emile, 34, 35, 124, pl. 69 Ménil-Hubert, 36, 37, 41, 46, 61 Metternich, Princess Pauline de, 16, 89n. 83,124 Meurent, Victorine, 33, 9 m. 3, 124, pis. 47, 48 Michelangelo, 78, 81 Millaudon, Mme L., 124 Millet, 2,8,32,74,92n. 52 Mimi (maid in Fevre household), 28 Minutolo, Duchess of San Valentino. See Montejasi-Cicerale, Elena Mollien, Miles. See Rouget, Georges Monet, Claude, 1, 36, 57 Montejasi-Cicerale, Camilla, 10, 16, r7> !9> 5 8 ,59, 8 9 n - 88 > 95 n - 45, 1 2 4» pis. 29, 114 Montejasi-Cicerale, Duchess of, and Her Two Daughters, 58-59, pl. 114 Montejasi-Cicerale, Elena, 10, 16, 17, 58, 59, 95n. 45,124, pis. 29, 114 Montejasi-Cicerale Sisters, 16, 17, 20, 8gn. 88, pi. 29

Index

140 Montejasi-Cicerale, Stefanina De Gas, 10, 16, 58, 59, 95n. 45, 124, pl. 114 Montpellier Museum, 6 Mont-Saint-Michel, 61 Moore, George, 23, 44 Morbilli, Adelchi, 10, 11,17, 87n. 49, 125 Morbilli, Alfredo, Duke of Sant'Angelo a Frosolone, 10,11,17,125, pl. 21 Morbilli, Edmondo, 10,16-18,20,24, 5 9 . 7 3 . 8 8 n - 49.95 n - "> I 2 5 . P ls - 3 8 . 39 Morbilli, Signor and Signora Edmond, 16, 18-20, 24, 59, pls. 38, 39 Morbilli, Gustavo, 87n. 49 Morbilli, Rosa Adelaida De Gas, 10, 17, 88n. 49, 95n. 45, 125 Morbilli, Thérèse De Gas, 7, 17, 18, 31,43,68,73, 88n. 49,96n. 26,125, p!s- 37. 57 Moreau, Gustave, 4,23, 87,125 Morisani, Ottavio, 87n. 37 Morisot, Berthe, 22-25, 27> 3°. 4 8 . 7 3 Morisot, Edma, 27, 30,34,9m. 23 Morisot, M., 22, 37 Morisot, Mme, 22, 24, 25, 27, 34, 37, 61 Morisot, Tiburce, 22, 26, 9m. 22 Morisot, Yves. See Gobillard-Morisot, Yves Murat, Joachim, 12 Musset, Alfred de, 88n. 70 Musson, Désirée, 21,38,126 Musson, Estelle, 27, 40, 47, 48, 93n. 82, 126, pls. 40, 41, 76, 77, 78; first husband's death, 21; posthumous birth of child, 21; blindness, 38; marriage to René De Gas, 38; visit to France, 21 Musson, Gaston, 93n. 82 Musson, Germain, 126 Musson, Henri, 44 Musson, Mathilde, See Bell, Mathilde Musson Musson, Michel, 21, 38, 39, 44, 126, pl. 80 Musson, Mme Michel and Her Two Daughters, 21, pl. 40

Musson, Odile Longer (Mme Michel Musson), 21, 38, pl. 40 Naples, 10,12, 17, 45, 73, 8 7 ^ 37 Naples, Accademia di Belle Arti, 87n. 37; Museum, 11; Reale Istituto di Belle Arti, 87n. 37 Napoleon III, 33,89n. 82,126 N e w Orleans, 2, 20, 21, 23, 27, 37, 38> 43 New York: Metropolitan Museum, 2, 27,48 Neyt, Sabine. See Sabine (Neyt) Niaudet, Alfred, 127 Niel, Maréchal Adolphe, 127 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 70 Nittis, Jacques de, 93n. 16, 127 Nittis, Giuseppe de, 24 Nittis, Mme Giuseppe de, 127 Normandy, 35. See also Ménil-Hubert Northampton, Massachusetts: Smith College Museum of Art, 8 Notre Dame (Paris), 80 Occident, V, 75 Oedipus, 80 Oeuvre, V (by Zola), 70 Offenbach, Jacques, 119 Olympia. See Manet, Edouard Opéra (Paris), 1, 27, 30, 60, 65; archives of, 65 Orchestra (by Degas), 28-30, 62, pl. 60 Orchestra. See Daumier, Honoré Ottoz, Jérôme, 127 Pagans, Lorenzo, 22, 27, 28, 41, 56, 9 2 n - 4°, 94 n - 43. I27> P ls - 5 8 . " 5 Pagans and Degas père, 27, 28, pis. 58. I x 5 Panciatichi, Lucrezia. See Bronzino Paris: Bibliothèque Doucet, 10; Bibliothèque Nationale, 6, 18; Musée du Louvre, 4,6,9,19, 22 Pau, 61 Paul III. See Titian Pays, J.-A. du, 89nn. 77, 78, 81, and 82

Pellegrini, Carlo, 53, 54, 59, 63, 127, pl. 98; Conservative Conversion (Lord Wharncliffe), 53, pl. 97 Perronneau, Jean-Baptiste, 31, 65, 9Ôn. 26 Perrot, Jules, 56, 57, 59, 126, pis. 92, 93 Perugino, 8, 46 Photography, 16-21, 23, 29, 38, 39, 55. 5 6 . 94 Picasso, Pablo, 79 Pillet, 29, 92n. 40,128 Pillot, 128 Piot-Normand, Alexandre, 92n. 40, 128 Pissarro, Camille, 1,36, 40,57, 70,76, 93n. 76 Pissarro, Lucien, 76 Place de la Concorde, Vicomte Lepic and His Daughters, 46,55, 930.16, pl. 88 Pontormo, 12 Portraits by Degas (when sitter is identified, see by name in Index or Appendix B ) : Impresario, 2-3, pls. 94,95; Mile Salle or Mile Sanlaville (?), 65, 66, pls. 129, 130; Violinist and Young Woman, 33, pl. 75; Woman Holding Her Nec\, 64, pls. 131, 132; Woman Pulling on Gloves, 49, pl. 85; Woman Seated in Yellow Dress, 64, pl. 138; Woman with Chrysanthemums (Mme Hertel), 31-32, pl. 44; Woman with a Parrot, pl. 48; Woman with an Umbrella, 48, pl. 84; Young Girl in a Red Peignoir, 33, pl. 49; Young Woman, 63, pl. 117; Young Woman on a Sofa, 48, 61-62, pl. 82; Young Woman Seated, 61-62, pl. 116 Portraits in a Frieze, 50, pl. n o Primicile Carafa. See MontejasiCicerale Proudhon, Pierre Joseph, 74 Proust, Marcel, 96n. 53 Provence, 6 Providence, Rhode Island: School of Design Museum, 70

Index

141

Puligo, Domenico, 6, 86n. 17

Sabine (Neyt) (Degas' maid), 129 Saint-Leon, Charles Victor Arthur,

Rachel, 64 Racine, Jean, 74 Raimondi, R., 87nn. 37 and 38 Ramel, M. and Mme. See Ingres, Jean August Dominique Raphael, 8 Raphael school, 6 Redon, Odilon, 32-33 Rembrandt, 1 1 , 78, pi. 17 Renoir, Pierre Auguste, 1, 36, 50-52, 57; Jean Samary Standing, 94n. 30 Rewald, John 39, 46 Rewald, Mr. and Mrs. John, collection, 87n. 49 Reyer, Louis, 64 Rhode Island School of Design Museum. See Providence Ristori, Adelaide, 60 Rivière, G., 50, 81 Robert Macaire Boursier. See Daumier, Honoré Rome, 10; Villa Medici, 4, 10, 19, 87n. 41 Rouart, Alexis, 45,60, 94n. 35 Rouart, Alexis (son of Henri), 73-75, 97 (chap, v, n. 29), 128, pis. 139, 140 Rouart, Mme Alexis, 77-78,97 (chap. v, n. 29), 128, pis. 144,145 Rouart, Hélène, 45, 47, 67-69, 74, 128, pis. 87, 122, 124 Rouart, Henri, 32, 34, 36, 43, 45, 47, 59-61, 67, 73, 74-79, 97n. 29, 128129, pis. 87,140 Rouart, Henri, sale collection, 80,129 Rouart, Mme Henri, 67-69, 74, 129, pis. 122,123 Rouart, M. and Mme Louis, 76, 77, 97 (chap, v, n. 29), 129, pis. 141, M 2 , 143 Rouart, Madeline, 77-78, 97nn. 27 and 29, 129, pi. 144 Rouget, Georges, 129; Miles. Mollien, 17, 9on. 89 Ruelle, 129 Rutté, Mme de, 47, 48, 59, 129, pl. 83

9 2 n -43 Saint-Simon, Claude de, 74 Saint-Valéry, 17, 36 Sakinobu, 54 Salammbô (by Reyer), 64 Sales of contents of Degas' studio [italic numbers are sales and catalogue numbers]: I: 312, 119; 313, 119; 326, 123; II: 210, 122; 238(1), 124; 238(2), 1 1 7 ; 239(1), 124; 239(2), 117, pi. 51; 239(3), "7; 240, 118; 241, 118; 242, 117; 263, lri

; 337> 9 i n - 37» I 2 1 ; 347> " i ; III: 93(left), 87n. 49, 125; 93(center), 88n. 50, 125; 93(right), 87n. 49. I 2 5 î I52(2)9 l n - 28, 1 1 1 ; 156(1), 118; 156(2), 118; 156(3), 89n. 86, n o ; 157(2), 127; 157(3), 127; 158, 1 3 1 ; 159, 1x9; 160(2), iii; 162, 1 1 3 , 114; 302, 9611. 21; 303, 128; 304, i i i ; 344a, 123; 344b, 123; 380, 128; 404, 118; 405, 118; IV: 72,118; 73c, 118; 89a, n o ; 89b, 118; 8gd, n o ; 90b, 1 1 7 ; 96c, 115; 98a, 1 1 5 ; 98b, n o ; 98c, n o ; 100b, 9m. 21; 102a, 87n. 49, 125; 102c, 125; 108b, 105; III, 129; i2ic, 86n. 27, 114; i2id, 86n. 25, 115; 131a, 109, 112, 121, 126, 127; 131b, 125; 132c, 108; 135a, g6n. 39, 128; 135b, 96n. 39, 128; 157, 127; 215a, 120; 248, 122; 249, 940. 24, 1 1 2 ; 250, 94n. 24, 1 1 2 ; 250b, 94n. 25; 252, 129; 264b, 129; 272a, 129; 272b, 128; 276b, 128, 129; Collection, 4, 96n. 26; 8,94n. 23; 39, 87n. 32; 50-69, 85 (chap, i, n. 8); 102104, 94n. 23; 182-214, 85 (chap, i, n. 8); 208, 88n. 71; 246, 132; 247, 132; Collection of Prints, 16-58, 94n. 23; 59, 86n. 26; 61-103, 94n. 3 1 ; 129-196, 94n. 32; 215, 94n. 33; 324-330, 9 4 n. 35 Sallandry, Mile, 65, 130 Salle, Mile, 65,130, pis. 127, 128,129, 130 Salons, 9; (1859), 17; (1861), 15, 18;

(1863), 15; (1865), 43; (1869), 25, 26, 30, 54; (1878), 70 Salon des Refusés (1863), 15 Samary, Henry. See ToulouseLautrec, Henri de Samary, Jeanne. See Renoir, Pierre Auguste Sangalli, Rita, 9611. 28, 130 Sanlaville, Mile, 65, 96n. 28, 130, pis. 129, 130 San Rocco di Capodimonte, 10 Santa Maria degli Angeli, 80 Sargent, John Singer, 4 Schwiter, Baron. See Delacroix, Ferdinand Sculpture, portraits by Degas: Valpinçon, Hortense, 2, 123; Zandomeneghi, 132 Semiramis, 14 Sermet, General Baron de, 130 Shaw, Mrs. Francis. See Bonnat, Léon Sickert, Walter Richard, 70-72, 1301 3 1 , pi. 121 Sigurd (by Reyer), 64, 96n. 24 Six Friends at Dieppe, 70-72, pi. 121 Solario, Andrea da, 7, 86n. 18 Solomon, proverb, 30 Sonnets, Huit, d'Edgar Degas, 9Ôn. 24 Souquet, 92n. 40, 131 Source, la, 92n. 43 Sterling, Charles, 86n. 26 Tanagra figurines, 67-69 Texier, E., 89n. 81 Tannhâuser (by Wagner), 64 Théâtre Italien, 60 Tissot, James, 23, 32, 44, 57, 59, 1 3 1 , pi. 46 Titian, 78; Paul III, 1 1 Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de, 4, 62, 72, 92n. 41, 116; Actor Henry Samary, 63, pi. 118; Mile Dihau at the Piano, 62-63, pi. 119 Tourny, Joseph-Gabriel, 1 1 , 131, pi. 18 Turin, 43

Index

142 Ukiyoye, 55 Ulysse, 131 Utamaro, 54 Valernes, Evariste de, 10, 16, 18, 19, 61, 73, 131, pl. 34 Valéry, Paul, 49, 74, 86n. 21, 81 Valleyres, 8911. 81 Valpinçon Bather. See Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique Valpinçon, Edouard, 5 Valpinçon family, 37, 41, 46, 61, pl. 72 Valpinçon, Henri, 36, 37, 131, pl. 71 Valpinçon, Hortense, 2, 37, 41, 69, 132, pis. 73, 125 Valpinçon, Paul, collection, 93n. 66

Valpingon, Mme Paul, 36, 37, 132 van Dyck, Anthony, 13, 14; Geronima Brignole-Sale and Daughter, 13; Marchesa Brignole-Sale, 13 van Gogh, Vincent, 4 Vanity Fair. See Pellegrini, Carlo Velasquez, Diego, 32, 92n. 53 Vernet, Horace, 89n. 77 Villette, Mme Olivier (Alice), 132 Vimoutiers, 36 Viol, le, 9m. 21 Vinci, Leonardo da. See Leonardo Vollard, Ambroise, 23

Walker, John, 46, 55

Washington, D.C.: National Gallery, 24; Chester Dale collection, 8, 26, 40 Wharncliffe, Lord. See Pellegrini, Carlo Whisder, James, 17 Wintersteen, Mrs. John, collection, 67 Wolkonska, Mile N., 132 Young Spartans, 14 Zacharian, 69, 132, pi. 134 Zandomeneghi, Federigo, 132 Zeus, 18 Zoe (Closier) (Degas' maid), 61 Zola, Emile, 32, 54, 70

rUtes

d. L.D.

before a date indicates that Degas dated the painting himself. refers to the standard catalogue of Daumier's prints by Loys Delteil.

Self-Portrait, 1854, L. 2, oil on paper applied to canvas {ijxA Collection Marquis de Ganay, Paris.

X 13 inches),

2

Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863), Baron 1826-1830, oil (85% X 56/2), National Gallery, London.

Schwiter,

3 Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867), M. Leblanc, 1823, oil (46% X 36%), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Wolfe Fund, 1918).

4

Franciabigio (ca. 1 4 8 2 - 1 5 2 5 ) , Portrait of a Young Man, oil, L o u v r e .

5

B r o n z i n o ( 1 5 0 3 - 1 5 7 2 ) , Portrait of a Sculptor, ca. 1545, panel ( 4 3 % X 3 5 % ) , L o u v r e .

6 Marguerite De Gas in Confirmation Dress, d. 1854, pencil (13 X 9V2), Mr. T . Edward Hanley collection, Bradford, Pennsylvania.

7 Marguerite De Gas, ca. 1854, pencil (12% X 8), Mr. John S. Newberry collection, New York.

René De Gas, d. 1855, pencil (12% X 9lÁ )> Mr. and Mrs. Richard S. Davis collection, Wayzata, Minnesota.

9 René De Gas, 1855, L. 6, oil (36^4 X 29 J^), Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts. 10

See color plates.

11

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867), S elf-Portrait, 1804, oil (30% X Musée Condé, Chantilly.

2

4)>

12 Selj-Portrait, ca. 1855, L. 5, oil (31% X

2

5Î4)> Louvre.

Self-Portrait in a Green Vest, 1855-1856, L. 11, oil on paper applied to canvas (15% X 12/4), Nepveu-Degas family collection. See frontispiece.

15 Self-Portrait, 1857, L. 37, oil on paper applied to canvas (10% X 7/4)> Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

16

Self-Portrait, 1857, D. 1, etching (9 X 5 % ) , Art Institute of Chicago (Joseph Brooks Fair collection).

17 Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), Young Man in a Velvet Cap, 1637, Hind 151, II, etching (1 15/16 X 1 7/16), Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University.

18 J.-G. Tourny, 1857, D. 4, etching (9 X 5%)» Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.

19 Copy of Titian's Paul III, Naples, ca. 1857, pencil (51/2 X 3/4), BN carnet, 15, p. 20, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

20

René-Hilaire

De Gas, d. 1857, L. 27, oil (21% X 16%), Louvre.

21 Alfredo Morbilli, Duca di Sancto Angelo, 1857, pencil ( 1 4 ^ X 10), owner unknown.

22 Edouard De Gas, d. October 1857, pencil, Louvre.

23 Bronzino (1503-1572), Portrait of a Girl with a Missai, 1530-40, panel (37 X y V t ) , Uffizi, Florence.

24

Copy of a Portrait of a Girl with a Missal by Bronzino, ca. 1858, pencil (5% X 37/s)> BN carnet, 18, p. 43, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

25

Copy of a Drawing of a Young Woman Attributed to Pontormo, ca. 1858, L. 53, oil (25y 2 X 17%)> Mr. and Mrs. R. W. Finlayson collection, Toronto.

âm 26 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867), The Gatteaux Family, 1850, pencil (17 3/16 X 23 î4)) Mr. Douglas H . Gordon collection, Baltimore.

Elena and Camilla Montejasi-Cicerale, 1865-1868, L. 169, oil (22% X 29 1 / 4), Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut.

30 Léon Bonnat, ca. 1863, L. m , oil (17 X i4Î4)> Musée Bonnat, Bayonne, France.

31

Enrique Mélida y Alinari, ca. 1864, L. 112, oil ( 17V4 X 13), Musée Bonnat, Bayonne, France.

32 Self-Portrait, ca. 1863, L. 104, essence on paper attached to canvas (21 X 15/4)? the H o n . and Mrs. John H a y Whitney collection, N e w York.

33 Self-Portrait, ca. 1863-1865, L. 105, oil (36 X 28 % ) , Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (on loan to National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.).

34

Degas and de Valernes, ca. 1865, L. 116, oil (45% X 35V2), Louvre.

hi " 'J.i t I V

35

Study for the Portrait of Madame Julie Burtin, 1863, pencil (13V4 X 10), Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University (Meta and Paul J. Sachs collection).

ft

*vxhy

Study of Hands for the Portrait of Madame Julie Burtin, 1863, pencil (4% X 3 % ) , BN carnet, 8, p. 37, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

37

Thérèse De Gas (later Morbilli), ca. 1863, L. 109, oil (35 X 23%), Louvre.

38

Edmond and Thérèse Morbilli, ca. 1865, L. 131, oil (46^4 X 35Î4)> National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Chester Dale collection).

39 Edmond and Thérèse Morbilli, ca. 1865, L . 164, oil (46% X 35V2 Fine Arts, Boston.

Museum o£

40 Mme Musson and Her Two Daughters, d. January 6, 1865, watercolor (13% X 10%), Art Institute of Chicago (gift of Tiffany and Margaret Blake).

41

Estelle Musson Balfour, ca. 1865, oil (10 9/16 X 8 % ) , Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.

42 Manet Listening to His Wife Play the Piano, ca. 1865, L. 127, oil ( 2 5 % X 28), owner unknown.

43 Edouard Manet at the Races, ca. 1865, pencil (12% X 9%), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Rogers Fund, 1918).

44

Woman with Chrysanthemums (Mme Hertel), d. 1865, L. 125, essence on paper attached to canvas (29 X 36% )> Metropolitan Museum of Art, N e w York (Mrs. H . O. Havemeyer bequest, 1929).

45

E d o u a r d M a n e t (1832-1883), Portrait of Emile Zola, exhibited Salon 1868, oil (57/4 X 4 3 / 4 ) , Louvre.

46 James Tissot, 1866, L. 175, oil (59 1/3 X 44% ), Metropolitan Museum of Art, N e w York (Rogers Fund, 1939).

Edouard Manet (1832-1883), Woman with a Parrot, 1866, exhibited Salon 1868, oil (72% X 52), Metropolitan Museum of Art, N e w York (gift of Erwin Davis, 1889).

48

Woman with a Parrot, ca. 1866, pencil (9% X 7 % ) , BN carnet, 8, p. 27, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

Young Girl in a Red Peignoir, ca. 1866, L. 336, oil (38% X 3 1 C h e s t e r Dale collection, New York.

50 Mile Dubourg (later Mme Fantin-Latour), 1866, L. 137, oil (31% X 25%), Mr. and Mrs. William E. Levis collection, Toledo, Ohio.

51 Sketch of Hands for Portrait of Mile Dubourg, 1866, pencil (6% X 9), Mr. Paul-Louis Weiller collection, on loan to Baltimore Museum of Art.

Sketch of Hands for Portrait of Mme Gaujelin, 1867, pencil (7% X 4%)> owner unknown.

53 Mme Gaujelin, 1867, L. 166, oil (13% X 10%), Kunsthalle, Hamburg.

54

Jean Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867), Mme Leblanc, 1823. oil (46% X 3 6 % ) , Metropolitan M u s e u m of Art, N e w Y o r k ( W o l f e F u n d , 1918).

55 Mme Gaujelin, d. 1867, exhibited Salon 1869, L. 165, oil (2^/2 X 1 7 ^ ), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

w

•S

K

56 Célestine Fevre in Her Bath, d. December 24, 1867, pencil (7V2 X l°lA)> Gianni Agnelli collection, Turin.

57

Therese De Gas Morbilli, ca. 1867-1869, L. 255, pastel (20 X 13 % ), private collection, Paris.

58 De GasPere Listening to Pagans, ca. 1869, L. 256, oil (21% X 15%),Louvre.

59 Honore Daumier (1808-1879), "The Orchestra During a Performance of a Tragedy" from Croquis Musicaux: no. 17, 1852, L.D. 2243, lithograph (10 5/16 X 8 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

60

The Orchestra (with Désiré Dihau), ca. 1869, L. 186, oil (20% X 13/4), Louvre.

61 Mlle Marie Dihau at the Piano, ca. 1869, L. 263, oil ( 1 5 % X 12Ys), Louvre.

Yves Gobillard-Morisot, 1869, L. 214, pastel (18% X 1 1 % ) , owner unknown.

I• 1p p g

63 Yves Gobillard-Morisot, 1869, pencil (12V4 X i61/4)) Mme Paul Valery collection, Paris.

64 Yz/e-f Gobillard-Morisot, 1869, L. 213, oil (20% X 2 5 '/4 ), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Mrs. H . O. Havemeyer bequest, 1929).

65 Mme Camus at the Piano, rejected Salon 1869, L. 207, oil (55 X 37)> Mr. Ch. Bùhrle collection, Zurich. 66 See color plates.

67

Mme Lisle, ca. 1869-1872, L. 266, pastel and charcoal (8J4 X 10%), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Rogers Fund, 1918).

68 Mme Lisle and Mme Loubens, ca. 1869-1872, L. 265, oil (331/4 X 3854)) Art Institute of Chicago (gift of Mr. and Mrs. Hugh A. Kirkland).

Rabbi Astruc and General Mellinet, 1871, L . 288, oil (5% X 8%), Mlle Gabrielle Reinach collection, Paris.

70

Jeantaud, Linet and Laine, d. March, 1871, L . 287, oil (14% X

:7%)>

Louvre.

71 Henri Valpinçon and Nurse, ca. 1871-1872, L. 270, oil (12 X ló'/s)) private collection.

72

Carriage at the Races, ca. 1871-1872, exhibited in first Impressionist exhibition, 1874, L. 281, oil (13% X 21%), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

73 Hortense Valpinqon as a Child, ca. 1871-1872, L. 206, oil (29% X 44%), Minneapolis Institute of Arts (John R. Van Derlip Fund, 1948).

Edouard Manet (1832-1883), Music Lesson, 1870 ( 5 5 ^ X 68), owner unknown.

75

Violinist and Young collection, U.S.A.

Woman,

ca. 1872-1873, L . 274, oil ( 1 8 % X 2 1 % ) , private

76 Femme à la Potiche (Estelle Musson de Gas), d. 1872, L. 305, oil (25% X 21 %), Louvre.

77 Estelle Musson De Gas, 1872-1873, L. 306, oil ( 3 9 % X 54), private collection, Switzerland.

78

Estelle Musson De Gas, 1872-1873, L . 313, oil (28% X 36%), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Chester Dale collection).

79 Mathilde Musson Bell ( ? ) , 1872-1873, L. 318, pastel (25*4 X 30), Ordrupgaardsamlingen (Hansen collection), Denmark.

81

Achille De Gas, ca. 1872-1873, L. 307, oil on parchment on canvas (14V2 X 9 J 4 ) , P- D- McMillan Land Co., Minneapolis.

82 young Woman on a Sofa, d. 1875, L. 363, oil on pink paper (18% X 16/2), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer bequest).

83 Mme de Rutte, ca. 1875, L . 369, oil (24% X 19%)> owner unknown.

84

Woman with an Umbrella, ca. 1876, L. 463 (24 X 1 9 11/16), Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Sachs collection, Paris.

85 See color plates.

86 Henri De Gas and His Niece Lucy, ca. 1876, L. 394, oil {^ßVz X 45V2)) Art Institute of Chicago (Mr. and Mrs. L. L. Coburn collection).

87 Henri Rouart and Hélène, ca. 1877, L. 424, oil (25 X 2 9 V2 ) > Dr. and Mrs. Rudolph J. Heinemann collection, New York.

89 Mlle Malo ( ?), L. 444, pastel ( 2 0 % X 15%), Barber Institute of Fine Arts, T h e University, Birmingham, England.

90 Mlle Malo ( ?), L . 442, oil (25% X 21 % ) , Detroit Institute of Arts.

91 Mile Malo ( ? ) , L. 441, oil (32 X 2 5%)> Chester Dale collection, N e w York. 92

See color plates.

The Ballet Master, Perrot, d. 1875, L. 364, essence ( 1 8 % X Henry P. Mcllhenny collection, Philadelphia.

11

V2) ?

/V

94 Study for the Impresario, ca. 1877, pencil (6l/8 X 9%), owner unknown. 95 See color plates.

96

Paul Cézanne ( ?), ca. 1876-1879, perhaps exhibited in f o u r t h Impressionist exhibition, 1879, L. 326, oil (28% X I 0 % ) ) Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon.

97

Carlo Pellegrini as "Ape" (1839-1889), Conservative Conversion (A Portrait of Lord Wharncliffe) from Vanity Fair, August 14,1875.

98 Carlo Pellegrini, ca. 1876-1877, L. 407, watercolor with oil and pastel (24 X 13)) Tate Gallery, London.

99 Friends on the Stage (L. Halévy and A. Cave), 1876, exhibited in fourth Impressionist exhibition, 1879, L. 526, pastel and tempera on paper (31% X 21%), Louvre (bequest of M. and M m e Elie Halévy).

100 Honoré Daumier, Robert Macaire Boursier, L.D. 383, from Le Charivari, February 26,1837 (9 X 8 % ) , Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (gift of Edwin D. T. Bechtel).

At the Bourse ( E . May and M . Bolatre), exhibited in fourth Impressionist exhibition, 1879, L . 499, oil (39% X 3 2 % ) > Louvre.

102 Diego Martelli, 1879, exhibited in fourth Impressionist exhibition, 1879, L. 519, oil (423/$ X 39%); National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.

103 Edmond Duranty, d. 1879, exhibited in fifth Impressionist exhibition, 1880, L. 517, tempera and pastel on canvas ( 3 9 % X 3 9 % ) , Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum (Burrell collection). 104 See color plates.

105 Mme Dietz-Monin, 187g, exhibited in fourth Impressionist exhibition, 1879, L. 534, pastel and tempera (33% X 29%), Art Institute of Chicago (Joseph Winterbotham collection).

106 Léon Bonnat (1838-1923), Mrs. Francis Shaw, 1878, oil (49% X 2 9 Y s ) , Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

107

Clairin (1843-1919), Sarah Bernhardt, 1876, oil, Musée du Petit Palais, Paris.

108 Ellen Andrée, 1879, D. 20, etching ( 4 % X 3%), Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

109 Ellen Andrée (enlarged detail), 1879, D. 20, etching, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

111 Miss Cassait at the Louvre, ca. 1880, L. 581, pastel (27 X 20%), private collection, New York.

112 Mary Cassait (1845-1926), Self-Portrait, ca. 1878, gouache (23/2 X 13V2), Mr. Richman Proskauer collection.

113 Miss Cassait, ca. 1880-1884, 79^ oil (29% X 23%), M. André Meyer collection, N e w York.

115

Pagans and De Gas Père, 1882, L. 345, oil (32 X 33 V!), private collection, Michigan.

116

Young Woman Seated, L. 803, pastel (24% X 27)> Lehman collection, Paris.

117 Young Woman, L. 802, pastel (19 X i 2 )» Oveta Culp Hobby collection, Texas.

118

H e n r i de T o u l o u s e - L a u t r e c (1864-1901), Henry Jacques L a r o c h e collection, Paris.

Samary,

1889 (29V2 X

ioVi),

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), Mlle Marie Dihau at the Piano, ca. 1890 (26% X 18%), Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi.

120

The Mante Family, ca. 1884, L. 971 (35% X 1 9 % ) , Mrs. John Wintersteen collection, Philadelphia.

121 Six Friends at Dieppe, 1885, L. 824, pastel (45 X 28), Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.

•f-.«*

122 Mme Rouart unknown.

and Hélène,

.

1884, pencil and some color (io1/^ X

I,

10), owner

vC'-

perhaps destroyed during World W a r II, present owner unknown.

138

Woman Seated in Yellow Dress, L. 1135, pastel (28% X 2 3 % ) , Mr. and Mrs. Leo M. Rogers collection, New York.

Alexis Rouarî, 1895, L. 1178, pastel (17 X 13)5 private collection, Paris.

Henri Rouart and His Son Alexis, 1895, L. 1176, oil (36 5/16 X 28%), Mr. and Mrs. J. K. Thannhauser collection, New York.

141 M. and Mme Louis Rouart, 1904, L . 1437, pastel (60 X 45), Mr. and Mrs. Gregor Piatigorsky collection.

142

M. and Mme Louis Rouart, 1904, L . 1444, pastel (235/2 X iS'/s), owner u n k n o w n .

143 M. and Mme Louis Rouart, 1904, L. 1440, pastel (35% X 44), owner unknown.

144 Mme Alexis Rouart and Her Two Children, ca. 1905, L. 1450, pastel (63 X 55/4 ); Musee du Petit Palais, Paris.

145 Preparatory Drawing owner unknown.

of Mme Alexis Rouart, ca. 1905, charcoal (24 X

18V4),

Çahr Plates

Achille De Gas in the Uniform of a Cadet, ca. 1855? L. 30, oil (25/2 X 2 0 y 2 ) , National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Chester Dale collection).

28

Giovanna and Giulia Bellelli, 1862-1864, L. 126, oil ( 3 8 % X 29V2)) Los Angeles County M u s e u m (gift of Mr. and Mrs. George G a r d D e Sylva).

66

Mme Camus with a Fan, exhibited Salon 1870, L. 271, oil (28% X 36%), Gallery of Art, Washington, D . C . (Chester Dale collcction).

National

85

Woman Pulling on Glowes, ca. 1876, L. 438, oil (24 X Mr. and Mrs. Erncst Kanzler collection.

92

Jules Perrot Seated, ca. 1875-1879, L . 366, oil on panel ( 1 3 % X i ol /4)> Mrs. Theodore L . Tarson collection.

95

The Impresario, ca. 1877, oil (19% Francisco.

X M)» Mr. Louis A . Benoist collection, San

104 Mme Dietz-Monin, 1879, L. 536, pastel (3554 X ^Vi), Simon collection. Los Angeles.

Mr. and Mrs. Norton

124 Hélène Rouan, 1886, L. 869, oil (64 X 4 8 % ) , René Gimpel Estate.