Retiring

Art Historical Context

Edgar Degas’s *Retiring* (c. 1883) captures an intimate, everyday moment with the quiet sensitivity that defined much of his later work. Although best known for his ballet scenes, Degas frequently turned his attention to women in private settings, exploring the rhythms of ordinary life. Created during the height of the Impressionist era, this pastel reflects his fascination with movement, light, and the human figure observed from unexpected angles. Degas was a master of pastel, a medium he embraced for its rich color and immediacy. Here he employs stumping—a technique of blending pigments with a soft tool—to create velvety transitions and subtle modeling of form. The work’s modest scale and delicate layering on cream wove paper invite close viewing, revealing the artist’s remarkable ability to suggest both texture and atmosphere with economical strokes. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago’s Prints and Drawings collection, *Retiring* exemplifies Degas’s innovative approach to draftsmanship and his enduring interest in modern life’s fleeting gestures.

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...