Auguste Degas
c. 1859
Medium
Graphite, with touches of stumping, on buff laid paper with red and brown inclusions
Dimensions
33.9 × 25.9 cm (13 3/8 × 10 1/4 in.)
Classification
prints and drawing
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
185849
Art Historical Context
In the Prints and Drawings collection of the Art Institute of resides a poignant early work by Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas *Auguste Degas* (c. 1859). This intimate graphite drawing on buff laid paper captures Degas's relative—likely his brother Auguste—in a moment of quiet contemplation. Measuring 33.9 × 25.9 cm, it exemplifies the young artist's (then in his mid-20s) emerging prowess during his formative years in Paris, before his full immersion in Impressionism. Degas employs graphite with delicate touches of stumping—a technique using a soft tool to blend tones for subtle gradations and so...
About the Artist
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas · 1834–1917
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas, born on July 19, 1834, in Paris to a prosperous banking family, was the eldest of five children. His mother, Célestine Musson, a Creole from New Orleans whose father Germain Musson had roots in Haiti, died when Degas was thirteen, leaving his father Augustin and unmarried uncles to guide him. Educated at the elite Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he earned a baccalauréat in...