Edmondo and Thérèse Morbilli

c. 1865

Edgar Degas

Artist, French, 1834 - 1917

A man and woman, both with pale, peachy skin, sit on opposite sides of a burgundy-red, low-backed sofa in a room wallpapered with a striped, floral pattern in this vertical painting. To our left, the woman sits with her body facing us, and she looks at us with dark eyes under dark, arched brows. She has an oval face, a straight nose, and her coral-pink lips are closed. The woman’s dark brown hair is parted down the middle, and smoothed and pulled back to the base of her head. Her pinkish-tan dress has a narrow white collar and a full, billowing skirt. A loosely painted, crimson-red shawl wraps around her torso and is pulled over white, puffy sleeves. Also loosely painted, a shell-shaped, tan object to our right could be a fan held in her left hand. To our right and on the far side of the piece of furniture, the man sits on the low back of the chaise-longue, his left knee bent so that thigh, closer to us, rests along the back of the sofa. He turns his face to look at us from the corners of his eyes. He has a rounded nose, and his full, pink lips are closed. He has an auburn-brown beard and his short hair is tousled. He wears a brown coat and charcoal-gray slacks. He rests the hand closer to us against his hip so his elbow juts toward us. To either side of the people and nearly spanning the width of the painting, the arms of the chaise curve upward to about the height of the woman’s shoulders. A loosely painted, ball-like form next to the left arm of the chaise could be a hat or other object on a side table. The wall behind the people extends from the left edge of the painting to just behind the man, and is patterned with evergreen-colored dots to create floral patterns along vertical beige-colored stripes, all against a moss-green background. A golden yellow, vertical line near the left edge of the painting may be the frame of a mirror or painting. Beyond the man, to our right, a doorway opens to another room with mustard-yellow walls with white molding along the ceiling. A ghostly outline in ash-gray suggests a woman wearing a full skirt, long sleeved jacket, and hat in the room beyond. The paint in some areas is thinly applied or scraped away, especially in the people’s clothing.

Media Options

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Degas' family was relatively affluent, so he did not have to rely entirely on sales of his work for financial support. He was thus free to experiment and choose his own subjects; almost all of his portraits depict relatives or friends. He was also able to delay finishing paintings, reworking them until they met his exacting standards. Many times Degas retrieved works he had already delivered so that he could perfect them. Some he never completed.

This unfinished portrait of Degas' sister and her Neapolitan husband is one such example. (The painting was in his studio at the time of his death.) Notice how Thérèse's dress and shawl are undefined masses of color. There, Degas has scraped and rubbed the paint off the canvas. The dark lines indicate changes he intended but never made. The faces, by contrast, are carefully finished, detailed and expressive. Degas hoped to capture his sitters, he said, in "familiar and typical attitudes."

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Chester Dale Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 117.2 x 89.7 cm (46 1/8 x 35 5/16 in.)
    framed: 141.6 x 114.9 cm (55 3/4 x 45 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1963.10.125

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas [1830-1917], Paris; by gift to his niece, Mlle Jeanne Fevre, Nice. (Paul Rosenberg and Co., London, New York, and Paris); sold July 1932 to Chester Dale [1882-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1931

  • Exposition Degas, Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, 1931, no. 8

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

1941

  • Catalogue of French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 6, repro. pl. X, as The Duke and Duchess of Morbilli.

1942

  • French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 38, repro., as The Duke and Duchess of Morbilli.

1944

  • French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1944: 38, repro., as The Duke and Duchess of Morbilli.

1946

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

1953

  • French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1953: 45, repro., as The Duke and Duchess of Morbilli.

1957

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 100, as The Duke and Duchess of Morbilli.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 325, repro., as The Duke and Duchess of Morbilli.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 39, as Duke and Duchess of Morbilli.

  • Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 73, repro.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 31, repro., as Duke and Duchess of Morbilli.

1970

  • Minervino 1970, no.217.

1975

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

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 474, no. 698, color repro.

1985

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

1997

  • Kelder, Diane. The Great Book of French Impressionism, 1997, no. 265, repro.

2017

  • Hoenigswald, Ann, and Kimberly A. Jones. "The Question of Finish in the Work of Edgar Degas." In Degas, Daphne Barbour and Suzanne Quillen Lomax, eds. Facture. Conservation, Science, Art History 3 (2017): 20-49, esp. 40-46, figs. 15, 16-18 (details), 19-20 (infrared reflectograms), 21 (X-radiograph).

Wikidata ID

Q20188664

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