Restaurabits

Secrets and other curiosities

Detalle de la obra de Degas, "En la sombrerería"

Mastery of colour in Degas

Detail of the visible image of the painting “At the Milliner's”, by Edgar Degas
Detalle de la imagen visible de la obra “En la sombrerería”, de Edgar 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.

The vivid colours of the hats stand out powerfully from the rest of the picture. The artist leaves some contours slightly blurred and this, coupled with the expressiveness of his strokes, infuses the moment captured with great movement. This is a very carefully calculated approach. Indeed, as he himself once stressed: «No art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection».

This painstakingly crafted layering is another of Degas’s hallmarks as a pastel artist. At this late stage in his life, he had already achieved an exceptional mastery of the medium.

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.
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.

 
Detail of the X-ray of the painting by Degas, “At the Milliner's”
Restaurabit
A button "At the Milliner’s"

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.
View all