Ploughed Field Bordered by Trees
c. 1892
Medium
Pastel, over color monotype, on off-white wove paper, laid down on cream card
Dimensions
Image: 25.3 × 34.5 cm (10 × 13 5/8 in.); Sheet: 27 × 35.9 cm (10 11/16 × 14 3/16 in.)
Classification
prints and drawing
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
185805
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This work shows how Degas adapted his monotype prints. First, on the printing plate, he manipulated diluted oil paint with cloth pads and coarse bristle brushes. Having transferred these textural effects to the paper, he added pastel over the monotype, lending definition to the leaves and branches of the trees. In November 1892, Degas’s monotype landscapes were the subject of an exhibition at the gallery of Paul Durand-Ruel. One critic heralded it as the “event of the season.” The show included...
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...