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Your galleryPortrait of Mme Lisle and Mme Loubens
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Compare the two tilted heads and dark dresses, then look at where the surroundings dissolve into loosely blocked patches of paint.
Preparatory drawings identify Madame Lisle at left and Madame Loubens at right, both friends of the Manet family. Degas left this double portrait unfinished. The contrast between the developed faces and less resolved setting gives an unusually direct view of how he built an image around people in his circle.
Oil on canvas · 84 × 96.6 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Impressionism
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Portrait of Mme Lisle and Mme Loubens
- Artist
- Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917)
- Date
- c. 1867
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 84 × 96.6 cm (33 1/16 × 38 in.); Framed: 101.6 × 115 × 8 cm (40 × 45 1/4 × 3 1/8 in.)
- Credit line
- Gift of Annie Laurie Ryerson in memory of Joseph Turner Ryerson
- 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.