Victoria Dubourg
1866
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1866
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Victoria Dubourg is a 1866 by Edgar Degas, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A woman looks straight at you, her face sketched in quick, dark lines. Her eyes are sharp, almost alive. Degas drew this as a study for a larger portrait of Victoria Dubourg, a painter known for her flower still-lifes. He focused on her gaze, even adding extra lines above to get it right. The rest of the face is looser, like he was figuring it out as he went. If you like how Degas builds a face from simple marks, look up *sfumato*—a way of blending tones so softly you barely see the edges.
