Opera Boxes, Edgar Degas, about 1877
Edgar Degas, portretEdgar DegasFrancja, 1834–1917

Opera Boxes

about 1877 · Drawing

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Gdzie jest teraz „Opera Boxes”? Kolekcja: J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Obecnie poza wystawą. Sprawdzono 7 października 2026.

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O dziele

Seemingly absorbed in the opera below, a woman holding opera glasses gazes down from her box while a man kisses her shoulder. In an adjacent box, men enviously observe the performance beside them, rather than the one below. Although Edgar Degas drew each figure quickly, focusing on their facial expressions and gestures, he easily captured the various emotions of lust, jealousy, and boredom that fill the scene. He drew the couple on the left with close attention to particulars, detailing the man's dinner jacket and the woman's ruffled top, her beaded necklace, and the buttons on her gloves. In contrast, the six men in the box beyond appear as a varied crowd of heads, with only the barest suggestion of their shoulders. One of Degas's contemporaries once described him as "an artist of rare intelligence, preoccupied with ideas, which seemed strange to the majority of his fellows. Taking advantage of the fact that there was no method or transition in his brain, which was active and always boiling over, they called him the inventor of social chiaroscuro."

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Szczegóły

Numer inwentarzowy
95.GD.35.25

W katalogu

Źródła

Z życia: Edgar Degas

Cały życiorys
  1. 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.

  2. mid-1870s

    Back to etching, and monotype

    After a ten-year break Degas returned to etching, at first guided by his old friend Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic, and began experimenting with lithography and monotype; he produced some 300 monotypes.

  3. second half of the 1870s

    Pastel becomes his main medium

    Degas increasingly chose pastel, often combining it with monotype, lithography, etching or gouache. To keep the colour from darkening under ordinary fixatives he devised his own method of fixing and applied pastel in layers.

  4. 1877

    Friendship with Mary Cassatt

    Degas invited Mary Cassatt to show in the third Impressionist exhibition, having admired her portrait “Ida” at the Salon of 1874. He introduced her to pastel and engraving, while she helped him sell paintings and promoted his reputation in the United States.

  5. autumn 1879 – April 1880

    The prints journal: Degas abruptly withdraws

    In the autumn and winter of 1879–1880 Degas and Cassatt worked closely together on a prints journal; he owned a small printing press. In April 1880 Degas abruptly withdrew, and without his support the project folded.

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Na wystawie: J. Paul Getty Museum

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