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©
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Edgar Degas

At the Milliner's

1882
Pastel on Paper.
75.5 x 85.5 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Inv. no.
516
(
1978.10
)
Not on display
  • Level 2 Permanent Collection
  • Level 1 Permanent Collection
  • Level 0 Carmen Thyssen Collection and Temporary exhibition rooms
  • Level -1 Temporary exhibition rooms, Conference room and EducaThyssen workshop
Level 2
Permanent Collection
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 13 15 16 17 18 22 19 20 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Recommended start of the visitClassical rooms
1 14th Century. Early Italian Painting 2 15th Century. German and Spanish Painting 3 15th Century. Early Netherlandish Painting 4 15th Century. Italian Painting 5 15th and 16th Centuries. Renaissance Portraiture 6 16th Century. Villahermosa Gallery 7 16th Century. Italian Painting 8 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 9 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 10 16th Century. Netherlandish Painting 11 Tiziano, Tintoretto, Bassano and  El Greco 12 17th Century. Caravaggio and Baroque Painting 13 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 14 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 15 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 16 18th Century. Italian Painting 17 18th Century. Italian Painting 18 18th Century. Italian Painting 19 Classical rooms 20 Classical rooms 21 Classical rooms 22 18th Century. Italian Painting 23 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 24 18th Century. French and English Painting 25 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Scenes of Daily Life and Interiors 26 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 27 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Portrait 28 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 29 19th Century. European Painting. Goya and Romanticism  
Level 1
Permanent Collection
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 Postpop rooms Rodin room
30 18th and 19th Centuries. Transatlantic Relations 31 19th Century. American Landscape and Environmental Awareness 32 19th Century. American Landscape and Urban Life 33 Recovering the ligth. Restoration of Waterloo Bridge, by André Derain 34 20th Century. Expressionist Landscapes 35 20th Century. Expressionist Portraits 36 20th Century. The Language of the Body 37 20th Century. Urban unrest 38 20th Century. Flowers 39 20th Century. Pioneers of abstraction 40 20th Century. Popular flavor 41 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition I 42 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition II 43 20th Century. Abstract Utopias 44 20th Century. Dada and Surrealism 45 20th Century. Interwar Realisms 46 20th Century. American Abstraction I 48 20th Century. Post-ward American Art 49 20th Century. Post-ward European Figurative Art 50 20th Century. Informalisms 51 20th Century. Homo Ludens 52 20th Century. Pop Art 53 Postpop rooms 54 Postpop rooms 55 Postpop rooms 56 Postpop rooms Rodin Exhibition room
Level 0
Carmen Thyssen Collection and Temporary exhibition rooms
A B C D E F G H I J Hall Temporary exhibition rooms Access to Permanent Collection Entrance Access to Carmen Thyssen Collection Paseo del Prado Garden
A 17th and 18th Centuries. Old Masters B 19th Century. North American Landscape C 19th Century. French Naturalist Landscape D 19th Century. Impressionism E 19th Century. Monet and North American Impressionism F 19th Century. Gauguin and Postimpressionism G 19th and 20th Centuries. Neo Impressionism and its Wake H 20th Century. Early Avant-gardes I 20th Century. Between the Wars Painting. Cubism, Abstraction and Surrealism J 20th Century. North American Painting and Others • HALL
Level -1
Temporary exhibition rooms, Conference room and EducaThyssen workshop
Temporary exhibition rooms Conference room EducaThyssen Workshop
Degas, who always regarded himself as a realist painter, strove to depict the reality around him in his works and chiefly drew inspiration from Parisian life. It is therefore not surprising that he should have developed an interest in the incipient world of shops in the French capital. His visits to fashion boutiques accompanying his friend Mme Straus or the American painter Mary Cassatt led him to paint a group of works that explore haute couture Paris and the world of the new department stores that was brilliantly immortalised by Émile Zola in The Ladies’ Paradise.

At the Milliner’s is, as Ronald Pickvance points out, the first in the series of pastel works devoted to the Paris milliners’ shops to be shown publicly at a small exhibition organised by the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in London in 1882. Even back then it was enthusiastically received by more than one critic, such as the anonymous writer who referred to an “astonishing picture of two fashionable young women trying on bonnets in a milliners’ shop [...]” and underlined how “silk and feather, satin and straw, are indicated swiftly, decisively, with the most brilliant touch.” Shortly afterwards it was sold by Durand-Ruel to Degas’s friend the painter and collector Henri Rouart (1833–1912).

The artist uses a markedly diagonal composition that draws attention to the table on which the luxurious hats lie, adorned with red, blue and white trimmings. The exquisite care with which these accessories are painted recalls his delicate manner of rendering dancers’ skirts and headdresses. However, Degas was much more interested in painting people in movement than inanimate objects, and although the hats are granted considerable prominence, the two women in the painting and their gestures and poses are the full focus of his attention.

The scene, captured from behind the table in such a way that one of the ladies has her back to the viewer, gazing at the other one who tries on the hat, once again recalls the manner of photographic framing that is so characteristic of Degas. The spectator does not view the shop from outside but is situated inside the room, behind the counter, in the spot where the milliner would be attending to her customers. On the background wall the glass shop window with a gilt frame is the only element that lends depth to the painting while allowing the outside light to enter the shop. Degas replaced the luminosity of the Impressionists, the outside light that envelops the whole painting, with partial illumination or spotlighting that was better suited to the theme of city life.

Paloma Alarcó
19th Centurys. XIX - Pintura europea. ImpresionismoWork on paperPastelPaper
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At the Milliner's

At the Milliner's

17.00 €

Max Beckmann, figuras del exílio. Exhibition catalogue. Paperback Spanish language edition.

Max Beckmann, figuras del exílio. Exhibition catalogue. Paperback Spanish language edition.

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Gabriele Münter. Exhibition catalogue. Hardback. (Spanish + English bilingual edition)

Gabriele Münter. Exhibition catalogue. Hardback. (Spanish + English bilingual edition)

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"Masterworks from Budapest" exhibition catalogue (Spanish, Paperback)

"Masterworks from Budapest" exhibition catalogue (Spanish, Paperback)

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At the Milliner's. En la sombrerería, 1882
At the Milliner's
Edgar Degas

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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At the Milliner's. En la sombrerería, 1882
At the Milliner's
Edgar Degas

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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