Artwork
Degas's Father Listening to Lorenzo Pagans Playing the Guitar
Degas's Father Listening to Lorenzo Pagans Playing the Guitar is an oil painting by the Realist artist Edgar Degas. It dates from 1870 and is held in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
The painting depicts a private, intimate moment between two figures: Auguste Degas, the artist’s father, and Lorenzo Pagans, a Spanish tenor and guitarist.
The painting depicts a private, intimate moment between two figures: Auguste Degas, the artist’s father, and Lorenzo Pagans, a Spanish tenor and guitarist. Auguste Degas is portrayed seated, leaning slightly forward with his hands clasped, absorbed in listening to Pagans, who plays a guitar. The composition emphasizes a quiet exchange, capturing the elder Degas’s rapt attention and Pagans’s performance as a shared experience of music and companionship.
The work functions as a double portrait, blending portraiture with genre painting to convey personal and artistic connections. While no overt symbolism is evident, the scene represents the appreciation of music within a domestic setting, reflecting Edgar Degas’s interest in portraying modern life and interpersonal relationships. The painting’s meaning lies in its evocation of harmony, both musical and human, between the two men.
Technique & Style
Edgar Degas executed Degas's Father Listening to Lorenzo Pagans Playing the Guitar in 1870 using oil paint on a canvas support. The work measures 81.6 cm in height and 65.1 cm in width. Classified as a double portrait, the painting depicts Auguste Degas and the guitarist Lorenzo Pagans.
The medium and genre reflect Degas's focus on portraiture during this period, capturing the interaction between the two figures.
History & Provenance
The painting is held in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, where it is catalogued under the accession number 1985.166. It was first exhibited publicly in 1870 at the Salon of Paris, and later featured in the museum’s retrospective of Degas’s works in 1985.
Overview
Created in 1870, this oil painting by Edgar Degas portrays a quiet interior scene. The work is part of the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It presents two male figures seated in a dimly lit room, one older and one younger, engaged in a moment of shared musical attention.
Context
Executed during Degas’s early mature period, the work aligns with his interest in everyday scenes and the private lives of his acquaintances. The inclusion of a half‑finished portrait on the wall hints at the artist’s broader preoccupation with the act of painting itself, a motif that recurs in his later oeuvre.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas on 19 July 1834 in Paris, Edgar Degas came from an affluent banking family with aristocratic roots and spent his childhood among the cultivated circles of the French capital.
- Two Men
Untitled
Study for "Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Thomas Carlyle"
The Studio
Self-Portrait
Concert in the living-room, sketch
Interiør fra en stue, hvor en ung mand ligger henslængt i en sofa og spiller lut, aften
Il professore cavalieri di Luca
The Musicale
Untitled
Jasieński at the Piano
The Reading