1867
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Portrait of Mme Lisle and Mme Loubens is a 1867 oil by Edgar Degas, a Impressionism work, depicting Sitting, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
This painting shows two women sitting together. They are dressed in dark clothes and look serious. The women were friends of Édouard Manet's family, which is how they met Degas. Degas didn't usually paint people he didn't know, so this is a bit unusual. He mostly painted family and friends. The women were identified through Degas' drawings, which labeled them as Mme Lisle and Mme Loubens. Check out the work of artist Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas to see more of his portraits.
Edgar Degas rarely accepted portrait commissions; his sitters were almost always family members or people within his social circle. The two women in this somber, unfinished painting were identified through preparatory drawings that label them as “Mme Lisle” (left) and “Mme Loubens” (right). Both were friends of artist Édouard Manet’s family; they likely met Degas at a gathering at Manet’s home. In an 1869 letter, artist Berthe Morisot lamented that Degas had abandoned her at one such soirée for the company of Madame Lisle and Madame Loubens, attesting to the group’s closeness.
Fort Worth Art Center, Inaugural Exhibiton, Oct. 8–31, 1954. New York, Wildenstein Gallery, Degas, April 5–May 7, 1960. Kunsthaus Zurich, Degas: The Portraits, December 2, 1994-March 5, 1995; Kunsthalle Tubingen March 18, 1995-June 18, 1995 [Zurich only]. Treviso, Museo di Santa Caterina, Storie dell'Impressionismo, October 29, 2016-April 17, 2017, cat. 10. Paris, Musée d’Orsay, Manet/Degas, Mar. 27-July 23, 2023, cat. 57; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sep. 12, 2023-Jan. 7, 2024, pl. 92.
Marco Goldin, ed., Storie dell'Impressionismo: I grandi protagonist da Monet a Renoir da Van Gogh a Gauguin (Linea d’ombre, 2016), 32 (color ill.), 237 (color ill.), 392-93 cat. 10. Laurence des Cars, Stephane Guégan and Isolde Pludermacher, Manet/Degas, exh. cat. (Paris: Musée d'Orsay: Gallimard, 2023), 78, 79 cat. 57. Stephan Wolohojian and Ashley E. Dunn, Manet/Degas, exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2023), 186-87 pl. 92, 292.
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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