Edgar DegasFrench, 1834–1917Beside the Sea
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Beside the Sea” now? Collection: Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Minneapolis, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
In 1869, Degas made a series of pastel drawings near Houlgate, a small seaside resort town in Normandy. Though extremely spare in conception, many of the drawings include detail sufficient to determine the precise locations where Degas worked. In this regard, Beside the Sea is particularly challenging for it is apparently devoid of specifically identifiable landmarks. Instead of trees, rocks, and the other usual vocabulary of landscape, Degas offers a scattering of barely indicated beach walkers to suggest scale and perspective. Nearly reduced to a series of horizontal striations, the radical simplicity of the drawing anticipates the tonal compositions of artists such as Whistler, Buhot, and Pennell.
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Details
- Accession number
- 96.86
In the catalog
Sources
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art — public domain
In the life of Edgar Degas
The whole lifelate 1860s
The turn to modern life: racecourses, milliners, laundresses
By the late 1860s Degas had moved from history painting to an original observation of contemporary life: racecourse scenes let him paint horses and riders in a modern setting, and then he turned to women at work — milliners and laundresses.
late 1860s
Begins modelling in wax
Degas modelled small wax figures of dancers, bathers and jockeys for himself, in place of studies. He never worked in bronze or stone; he valued wax for its changeability, and his sculptor friend Bartholomé encouraged him.
1870
A volunteer in the war; a flaw in his eyesight
When the Franco-Prussian War broke out Degas volunteered; at the first shooting practice it turned out that he saw poorly with his right eye. It was the first sign of the macular degeneration that left him almost blind at the end of his life; he was transferred to the artillery and served there to the end of the war.
early 1870s
Meets Durand-Ruel
Degas met the dealer Durand-Ruel, later the most prominent of the trusted dealers with whom he planned his strategy at auctions.
1870s
From “de Gas” back to plain “Degas”
The archives disproved the legend of an ancient noble line: the artist's paternal ancestors were bakers, and the name “de Gas” was invented by his father, who commissioned a false genealogy. In the 1870s Edgar returned to the plain spelling, Degas.
