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Shown from the knees up, a pale-skinned woman in a voluminous rust-orange dress stands facing us in this vertical portrait painting. She looks toward us but slightly down with dark brown eyes under curved brows. She has a wide face, rounded cheeks, a broad nose, and closed, coral-pink lips over a deeply dimpled chin. Her chestnut-brown hair is pulled up and back. The orange dress has a band of charcoal gray across the shoulders and at the flaring cuffs. Wide, vertical pleats fall from under the band across her chest. White trim, perhaps lace or fur, is suggested by loosely painted cream white at the high neck. The poofy sleeves and cinched cuffs of her white shirt extend beyond the dress sleeves. Her right arm, to our left, hangs by her side and the other holds an indistinct, loosely painted light-colored object down in front of her. She seems to be in a corner with the wall behind thinly washed in muted brown and green and a sienna-brown wood panel wall to our right.

Edgar Degas

Girl in Red, c. 1866

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 90

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 98.9 × 80.8 cm (38 15/16 × 31 13/16 in.)

framed: 128.91 × 102.87 cm (50 3/4 × 40 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Chester Dale Collection

Accession Number

1963.10.17

Artists / Makers

Edgar Degas (artist) French, 1834 - 1917

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Provenance

René de Gas, brother of the artist, Paris; (his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 10 November 1927, no. 96); purchased by (Galerie Georges Petit, Paris). (Wildenstein & Co., London, New York, and Paris, France) by 1934;[1] sold 1943 to Chester Dale [1882-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.

[1]Lent by Wildenstein to Marie Harriman Gallery exhibition in 1934.

Associated Names

Dale, Chester
Drouot, Hôtel
Galerie Georges Petit
Gas, René de
Wildenstein & Co., Inc.

Exhibition History

1931: Degas, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Boston, 1931, no. 4.

1934: Degas, Marie Harriman Gallery, New York, 1934, no. 14.

1934: Paintings by Renoir and Degas, Art Gallery of Toronto, October 1934, no. 28.

1935: Independent Painters of Nineteenth Century Paris, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1935, no. 9.

1937: Paintings by Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, Toledo Museum of Art, 1937, no. 8.

1941: Loan, Colorado Springs

1965: The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.

2010: From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, January 2010-January 2012, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

1946: Lemoisne, Paul André. Degas et son oeuvre. 4 vols. Paris, 1946-1949.

1962: Boggs, Jean Sutherland. Portraits by Degas. University of California, 1962, 33.

1965: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 74, repro.

1965: Frankfurter, Alfred. "How Great is the Dale Collection?" Art News 64 (May 1965):40-43, 51-53, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 39.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 32, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 96, repro.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 474, no. 700, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 119, repro.