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Shown from about the ankles up, a woman with ashen, pale skin, wearing a full, silvery-white dress with gray dots, sits on a low-backed white sofa against a pale peach background in this horizontal portrait painting. Just to our left of center, the woman sits with her body angled to our left and she looks in that direction with pale green eyes. Touches of green shade the inner corners of the eyes, and her complexion has a yellowish cast. Her pink lips are closed and her chestnut-brown hair is parted in the middle and pulled back. Her hands rest in her lap with wrists crossed. The dress darkens from eggshell white on the chest and sleeves to nickel gray on the skirt. Charcoal-gray dots create an irregular pattern that becomes looser as it moves down the skirt. Her dress is cinched at the waist with a black sash. The skirt spreads over her settee, which has a low back that angles up on our left. The peach wall behind her takes up the top half of the composition. The painting is created blended brushstrokes, giving it a soft, almost hazy look. The artist’s signature in red appears in the lower right corner: “Degas.”

Madame René de Gas, 1872/1873

Edgar Degas

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 86

Degas painted this moving portrait of his first cousin and sister-in-law, Estelle de Gas, in New Orleans, where she lived. Estelle was nearly blind, and Degas, whose own vision was deteriorating, was deeply affected by her condition.

The portrait may suggest dimming vision. The light is diffuse, the details blurred. And the palette of grays, pinks, and whites is almost monochromatic (one color). But the painting does not allow us to enter fully into Estelle’s experience. Positioned off center, she faces to the side. Her eyes seem unfocused, and her expression betrays nothing of what she is thinking or feeling. Isolated and withdrawn, she is unknowable.

Dive deeper

The impressionist style was incompatible with Degas' meticulous paint handling and premeditated method of composing, and he preferred "independent" or "realist" to "impressionist" as the name of the movement. Degas did help establish and direct the impressionist organization, however, and participated in seven of the eight exhibitions. He selected insistently modern themes -- ballet dancers, laundresses, prostitutes, cafés and café-concerts, and racetracks -- and depicted them in numerous variations. One other recurring genre was portraiture. Degas selected family and friends as models rather than paint commissioned portraits, and his portraits are often unconventional characterizations. This portrait of Estelle Musson Balfour de Gas, the artist's first cousin and sister-in-law, was painted during Degas' 1872-1873 visit to New Orleans.

The 1871 discovery of the deterioration of his own vision sensitized the artist to Estelle's near-blindness when he visited the next year. Posture, gesture, accessories, and activities were often used by Degas to characterize the models in his portraits. Such incidental details were deliberately omitted here, a similarly informative decision. The soft focus of the painting, subdued and nearly monochromatic color harmonies, and Estelle's unfocused gaze parallel her limited visual capacity and indicate the artist's respect for Estelle and compassionate understanding of her situation.

Object Data

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 72.9 x 92 cm (28 11/16 x 36 1/4 in.)

framed: 100.3 x 119.7 cm (39 1/2 x 47 1/8 in.)

Credit Line

Chester Dale Collection

Accession Number

1963.10.124

Artists / Makers

Edgar Degas (artist) French, 1834 - 1917

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Detail Information

Inscription

lower right with atelier stamp: Degas

Provenance

Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas [1834-1917], the artist, Paris; (Degas atelier sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 6-8 May 1918, no. 97); purchased by Jacques Seligmann [1858-1923], Paris, for his private collection; (Seligmann sale, American Art Galleries, New York, 27 January 1921, no. 51); purchased by (M. Knoedler & Co., London, New York, and Paris); sold 1921 to Henry D. Hughes, Philadelphia; on consignment with (Marie Sterner Galleries); sold 10 November 1928 to Chester Dale [1882-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.

Associated Names

American Art Association
Dale, Chester
Degas, Edgar
Galerie Georges Petit
Hughes, Henry D.
Knoedler & Company, M.
Marie Sterner Gallery
Seligmann, Jacques

Exhibition History

1931: Portraits of Women Loan Exhibition: Romanticism to Surrealism, Museum of French Art, New York, 1931, no. 11.

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. (through October 2011).

Bibliography

1929: Dale, Maud. Before Manet to Modigliani from the Chester Dale Collection. New York, 1929: no. 26, repro., as Portrait in White.

1931: "Portraiture: Examples at the French Museum and Elsewhere." The New York Herald Tribune (25 January 1931): section VIII, 8.

1941: Catalogue of French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 6-7, repro. pl. XII

1942: French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 37, repro.

1944: French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1944: 37, repro.

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

1946: Rewald, John. "Degas and His Family in New Orleans." Gazette des Beaux-Arts VI ser., vol 30 (August 1946):115-117, repro.

1946: Rewald, John. The History of Impressionism. New York, 1946: 229, repro.

1952: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 154, color repro.

1953: French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1953: 47, repro.

1956: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 54, repro.

1960: The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 10.

1962: Boggs, Jean Sutherland. Portraits by Degas. University of California, 1962:40-41, repro.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 262, repro.

1965: Edgar Degas: His Family and Friends in New Orleans. Exh. cat. Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans, 1965:38+, repro.

1965: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 76, repro.

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

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:438, color repro.

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

1970: Minervino 1970, no.355.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 98, repro.

1981: Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: repro. 133, 137-138.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 472, no. 695, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 121, repro.

1986: Bernard, Bruce. The Impressionist Revolution. London, 1986:260, repro. 194.

1992: National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 193, repro.

1997: Kelder, Diane. The Great Book of French Impressionism, 1997, no. 263, repro.

1999: Degas et la Nouvelle-Orléans. Exh. Cat. Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen, 1999:22, repro.

1999: Feigenbaum, Gail. Degas and New Orlean: A French Impressionist in America. Exh. Cat. New Orleans Museum of Art, 1999:207-208, repro.

2001: Southgate, M. Therese. The Art of JAMA II: Covers and Essays from The Journal of the American Medical Association. Chicago, 2001: 60-61, color repro.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 377, no. 310, color repro.

2013: Harris, Neil. Capital Culture: J. Carter Brown, the National Gallery of Art, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience. Chicago and London, 2013: 246, 248, 249.