Study of a Male Nude
Medium
Graphite on pink wove paper with pink and blue fibers, altered to buff
Dimensions
20.5 × 28.1 cm (8 1/8 × 11 1/8 in.)
Classification
prints and drawing
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
185909
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
French artists in Rome often gathered at the Villa Medici for after-dinner drawing sessions. On one such occasion, in the company of Gustave Moreau, the young Degas made this study. The two artists depicted the same nude, but from different vantage points. Degas dated his study “1857 ”speculatively, many years later, but Moreau recorded “1858” at the time. The model’s dramatic pose—raised arm, eyes turned heavenward—was in keeping with the large-scale paintings favored by the French state in the...
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...