1858
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Sheet of Studies and Sketches is a 1858 by Edgar Degas, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
This sheet mixes quick sketches in pencil and ink. You see a woman’s face copied from a Leonardo drawing at the Uffizi, plus a rough portrait of his cousin and quick studies of sculptures. The lines aren’t polished—they look like a young artist testing ideas. Degas made this in Florence in 1858 while copying old masters. Copying was how artists learned then. The mix of styles shows him pulling from many places at once. It’s a simple sheet with big meaning. Look up The Cleveland Museum of Art to see it in person.
Degas traveled to Florence, Italy, in July 1858, where he made this sheet of studies. The featured imagery is fragmented and dissociated, suggesting the young artist's engagement with art of the past. The refined female head drawn at center in graphite was copied from a drawing then attributed to Leonardo da Vinci in the Uffizi Gallery's collection. Other sketches record Degas's responses to Florentine sculpture. At upper right, he sketched an informal portrait of his cousin Giulia Bellelli, probably from life.
The date Degas wrote on this drawing is incorrect; he didn't visit Florence until 1858, and must have inscribed the sheet years later.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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.
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