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

Portrait of Thérèse de Gas

c. 1865
Oil on canvas, 89 x 67 cm
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Degas's family were related to the Italian aristocracy, among them Baroness Bellelli and Duchess Morbilli. In 1856 he traveled for the first time to Italy, where he intended to make the acquaintance of his Italian relatives. This journey, which was followed by another in 1858 and several more in 1859, was Degas's real education. In Italy, Degas preferred the Quattrocento painters and the exponents of Florentine Mannerism.

The people Degas depicted in that time were almost all members of his family, especially his sisters and brothers, and himself. His early portraits achieve their culmination in his group portrait The Bellelli Family.

Degas produced many portraits between 1865 and 1870, too, the major ones of which were Thérèse de Gas, Double Portrait, The Collector, Madame Hertel, Duke and Duchess of Morbilli, Jacques Joseph (James) Tissot, Mademoiselle Dihau at the Piano, Madame Camus at the Piano, Portrait of Hortense Valpinçon as a Child.

Conventional as they may be, these portraits highlight both what is characteristic and what is casual in the personality and deportment of the sitter.