“Place de la Concorde” was painted in 1875. It shows a friend of [[artist:2072|Edgar Degas]], Viscount Ludovic Lepic, a painter and engraver, with his two daughters and their dog. They are crossing the largest square in Paris, and Degas painted them as if he had seen them by cha…
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“Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando” was painted in 1879 in Paris. [[artist:2072|Edgar Degas]] went several evenings in a row to the Cirque Fernando to watch the act of the acrobat Miss La La, who rose up under the dome holding the rope with nothing but her teeth. In “Miss La La…
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“The Orchestra at the Opera” was painted around 1870. Its main figure is a friend of [[artist:2072|Edgar Degas]], the bassoonist Désiré Dihau, who played in the orchestra of the Paris Opera. Degas painted him in the centre, with his bassoon in his hands, and around him other mus…
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“The Absinthe Drinker (L'Absinthe)” was painted in 1875–1876. [[artist:2072|Edgar Degas]] asked two friends to pose in the café La Nouvelle Athènes in Paris, where artists gathered: the actress Ellen Andrée and the engraver Marcellin Desboutin. In “The Absinthe Drinker (L'Absin…
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“A Cotton Office in New Orleans” was painted in 1873, during the only journey of [[artist:2072|Edgar Degas]] to America. His mother was born in New Orleans, and his uncle Michel Musson and his two brothers, who traded in cotton, lived there. Degas spent several months with them.…
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Two Sisters is a painting full of spring. A young woman sits on a terrace by the river, and in front of her is a little girl in a red hat. Flowers bloom around them, greenery shows beyond the railing, and the water glitters in the distance. The young woman wears a dark blue dres…
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The Umbrellas is a painting with a secret you can see with the naked eye. A Paris street, a sudden shower. Dark umbrellas bloom above people's heads and almost hide the sky. On the right a mother and two little girls with a hoop pause for a moment. On the left a young woman with…
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Self-Portrait with a White Hat shows an old man in profile, quiet and turned inward. The year is 1910. [[artist:2484|Pierre-Auguste Renoir]] is sixty-nine. He no longer lives in Paris but in the south of France, in Cagnes-sur-Mer, in a house among old olive trees called Les Coll…
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Path Leading through Tall Grass is a painting in which you can almost hear the grass rustle. A summer hillside, grass up to the waist, and red poppies burning in it. Down a narrow path come a woman with a red parasol and a small child. Higher up, at the top of the hill, two more…
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La Grenouillère is the place where Impressionism was born. It was a lively spot for bathing and boating on the Seine, near Paris. There was a floating café, wooden walkways and a small round islet with a single tree, which Parisians jokingly called "the Camembert". On Sundays it…
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