Young Spartan Girls Challenging Boys

About this artwork

In 1859 Edgar Degas returned to Paris following a prolonged stay in Italy, where he visited relatives in Naples and Florence and attended life classes at the Académie Française in Rome. This picture, undertaken around 1860, speaks to his ambition to realize canvases featuring scenes from the Bible, as well as ancient and more recent history. Degas took his subject from the life of Lycurgus, a legendary ninth-century b.c. Spartan lawgiver. Lycurgus’s social reforms included an unusual method of p...

Art Historical Context

Edgar Degas painted *Young Spartan Girls Challenging Boys* around 1860, early in his career before he became known for Impressionist scenes of modern life. The large oil on canvas depicts a lively scene from ancient Sparta, where young women challenge their male counterparts, drawing on classical stories of physical training and equality in Spartan society. At nearly one by one-and-a-half meters, the work shows Degas’s careful study of the human figure in motion. Though Degas would later favor contemporary subjects, this history painting reveals his deep engagement with antique sources and traditional academic training. The balanced composition and precise draftsmanship highlight his skill at arranging dynamic groups while maintaining clarity and rhythm across the canvas. Today in the Art Institute of Chicago, the painting offers visitors a glimpse of the artist’s formative years and his lifelong fascination with bodies in action.

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...