Restaurabits

Secrets and other curiosities

En la sombrerería. Edgar Degas

A button "At the Milliner’s"

Detail of the X-ray of the painting by Degas, “At the Milliner's”
Detalle de la radiografía de la obra de Degas, “En la sombrerería”

X-radiography detected a very curious element trapped in this work: a button.

In the nineteenth century paperboards were produced using a coarse wood pulp.  The mixture could contain traces of other materials such as cloth, esparto grass, straw, or even fishing nets. However, it is very unusual to find a whole button. It must have slipped in during the mechanical process of manufacturing the support. It is most likely that the machine did not shred all the materials properly, which is why this resin button from an old rag and the tip of some metal objects are currently visible.

Listen

More restaurabits

Patent document for the fixative created by painter Luigi Chialiva
Restaurabit
Degas and the secret of his pastels

Underlying the technique employed in Edgar Degas’s At the Milliners is an unprecedented formula. The artist sought to master the pastel medium by creating successive layers of colour, transparencies and contrasts. To achieve this, he needed a fixative that would allow him to work without smudging the colours. But there was a problem... he did not like the fixatives available on the market because they altered the tones.
Detail of the visible image of the painting “At the Milliner's”, by Edgar Degas
Restaurabit
Mastery of colour in Degas

The pastel is superbly executed “At the Milliner’s”. Degas recreates the different textures of the hats and the women’s clothing, in which feathers, flowers and raffia are distinguishable, in a lively and vibrant manner using these coloured sticks. We can also see how the colours are applied in various layers without mixing, even though our eyes perceive them to be blended.
Image of the reverse side of Degas' painting, “At the Milliner's”
Restaurabit
The turquoise-blue back

For this work “At the Milliner’s”, Degas used a semi-industrially mounted support consisting of an ordinary paperboard base some 7 mm thick, reinforced on both sides with turquoise or blue-green paper.

 
View all