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Your galleryHenri Degas and His Niece Lucie Degas
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Compare the matching tilt of the two heads with the strong verticals of the door and chair that divide the room.
Henri was Degas’s uncle and guardian of the artist’s orphaned cousin Lucie. Degas probably painted them during a stay in Naples in 1875. Both wear mourning black. The thin paint and unresolved passages reveal an unfinished portrait, so its quiet arrangement should not be mistaken for a fully settled composition.
Oil on canvas · 99.8 × 119.9 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Impressionism
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Henri Degas and His Niece Lucie Degas (The Artist's Uncle and Cousin)
- Artist
- Edgar Degas
- Date
- 1875–76
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 99.8 × 119.9 cm (39 1/4 × 47 3/16 in.); Framed: 118.2 × 137.8 × 8.9 cm (46 1/2 × 54 1/4 × 3 1/2 in.)
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.







