DEGAS, Edgar
(b. 1834, Paris, d. 1917, Paris)

Semiramis Building Babylon

1861
Oil on canvas, 151 x 258 cm
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

In the early 1860s, Degas experimented with history paintings which never left his studio. One example is the Semiramis Building Babylon which may have been an allusion to the radical redesign of Paris being undertaken by Baron Haussmann.