50 Fun Facts About Edgar Degas

Which subject appears in more than half of Degas's works?

Ballet pictures sold well and paid the family debts his brother René ran up.

What did Degas prefer to be called instead of an Impressionist?

He mocked colleagues for painting outdoors and joked about gendarmes with bird-shot for landscapists.

In which city was Degas born in 1834?

His mother was a Creole from New Orleans and his father a banker.

Which American city did Degas's Creole mother come from?

Her father Germain Musson was born in Port-au-Prince and settled there in 1810.

Which master told the young Degas to 'draw lines, young man, and still more lines'?

They met in 1855, the year Degas entered the École des Beaux-Arts.

What did Degas's father expect him to study after the lycée?

He enrolled at the Faculty of Law in 1853 and applied little effort.

Which early masterpiece portrays Degas's aunt, her husband and their two daughters?

Begun in Naples in 1858, it was not finished until 1867 and hangs in the Musée d'Orsay.

In which Italian city was the exiled Baron Bellelli living when Degas painted his family?

Laura Bellelli wears mourning for her father, shown in the framed portrait behind her.

Which painter did Degas reportedly meet in 1864, both copying a Velázquez in the Louvre?

Manet's example pushed Degas from history painting to modern subjects.

During which war did Degas enlist in the National Guard and find his eyesight defective?

Rifle training revealed the problem; his eyes worried him for the rest of his life.

Which Degas painting was the only work a museum bought in his lifetime?

The museum in Pau acquired it; he painted it while staying on Esplanade Avenue in 1872–73.

Whose business debts forced Degas to sell his house and inherited art collection in 1874?

Dependent on sales for the first time, he produced much of his greatest work in the next decade.

How many of the eight Impressionist Exhibitions did Degas show in?

He organised them despite constant conflicts and insisted on including non-Impressionists like Forain.

How old was the dancer in the title of the only sculpture Degas exhibited in his lifetime?

Shown in 1881 in wax with real hair and a cloth tutu, it was called both revolutionary and ugly.

Who was the Belgian ballet student who modelled for Degas's famous wax dancer?

She studied at the Paris Opera Ballet school; critics compared her to a monkey.

In what material did Degas originally sculpt the Little Dancer?

It was two-thirds life size and dressed in a real bodice, tutu and slippers.

Which foundry cast the Degas bronzes after his death, from 1919 to 1936?

It judged 74 of the 150 waxes found in his studio fit for casting.

For how much did a Little Dancer bronze sell at Sotheby's in February 2009?

The seller, Auto Trader founder John Madejski, said he had bought it by accident.

At which sixth Impressionist exhibition year did the Little Dancer first appear?

Huysmans called it 'the first truly modern attempt at sculpture I know'.

What was the original title of the painting now known as L'Absinthe?

It became L'Absinthe only when shown in London in 1893, where it was called degraded.

Which actress, also painted by Manet, modelled the woman in L'Absinthe?

The man is painter-etcher Marcellin Desboutin; the café is the Nouvelle-Athènes.

In which Paris café is L'Absinthe set?

English critics in 1893 read the picture as a warning against absinthe and the French.

Which museum holds L'Absinthe?

George Moore's first reaction to the woman was 'What a whore!', which he later regretted.

Which silver-haired ballet master leads the lesson in The Ballet Class?

He and Mérante were the last survivors of the romantic ballet era at the Paris Opéra.

Which composer commissioned The Ballet Class?

The famous baritone-composer was a major collector of Manet and Degas.

Which American painter did Degas invite to show with the Impressionists in 1877?

He had admired her portrait Ida at the 1874 Salon; both stayed single and clashed over Dreyfus.

In which Pennsylvania town, now part of Pittsburgh, was Degas's American friend born?

Cassatt helped sell Degas's work in America and he introduced her to pastel and engraving.

How did Cassatt describe Degas's portrait of her holding cards?

She sold it and told Durand-Ruel she did not want it known she had posed.

Which scandal brought out Degas's antisemitism and cost him his Jewish friends?

He remained an outspoken Anti-Dreyfusard until his death in 1917.

Which dry medium did Degas master by the late 1870s, layering it in complex textures?

It let him reconcile his gift for line with a growing interest in colour.

Roughly how many monotypes did Degas produce?

He often reworked the printed images with pastel.

Which new hobby did Degas take up in the late 1880s, shooting friends by lamplight?

His double portrait of Renoir and Mallarmé is one result; he also shot dancers and nudes as reference.

Which three artists were especially well represented in Degas's own collection?

He also bought El Greco, Manet, Cassatt, Cézanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh.

In which painting does Degas show his bassoonist friend Désiré Dihau among the players?

Only the legs and tutus of the dancers appear above, cropped by the frame.

Which Degas painting was his first Salon acceptance, in 1865?

It attracted little attention; by 1866 he was showing a fallen jockey instead.

Which 1868 Salon work first introduced the stage subject Degas became known for?

From 1870 he painted ballet more and more because it sold.

Which novelist's Thérèse Raquin has been suggested as the source for Degas's Interior?

The painting is also called The Rape; it may simply depict prostitution.

Why did Degas fire one of his models, according to his biography?

His prejudices grew with age; by the 1890s he refused models he thought might be Jewish.

Which trial did Degas sketch for his 1881 pastels Criminal Physiognomies?

He drew the convicted juvenile gang members to study supposedly criminal features.

Which painter was probably Degas's greatest admirer?

Forain, Cassatt and Sickert were also strongly influenced, though he had no formal pupils.

What forced Degas to stop working and move to the Boulevard de Clichy in 1912?

He spent his last years nearly blind, wandering the streets of Paris.

Who said of Degas: 'All his friends had to leave him; I was one of the last to go'?

Degas believed a painter could have no personal life and cultivated his misanthropy.

Which novelist called Degas an 'old curmudgeon'?

Degas deliberately cultivated his reputation as a misanthropic bachelor.

Which female painter did Degas buy work from early and teach soft-ground etching?

He nagged her by letter to bring her drawings, calling her 'terrible Maria'.

Which non-European art did Degas collect, influencing his compositions?

Their cropped, off-centre designs suited his snapshot-like viewpoints.

What did Degas say no art was ever less of than his?

'What I do is the result of reflection and of the study of the great masters.'

Whose 1915 joint Cassatt–Degas show in New York raised money for women's suffrage?

Cassatt savoured the irony, given Degas's views.

In what year did Degas die?

He had stopped working around 1912 and was nearly blind.

Which relative's home on Esplanade Avenue hosted Degas in Louisiana in 1872?

He produced a number of works there, many of family members.

Which non-Impressionist did Degas insist on including in the group's exhibitions?

The rancor helped disband the group in 1886; Raffaëlli was another of his additions.