James-Jacques-Joseph Tissot (1836-1902)

Degas made this portrait of his friend around 1867, when both men were young painters on the rise in Paris and the word Impressionism did not yet exist. The sitter is James Tissot, shown lounging in a studio with his hat still on and his cane in hand, as if he has just dropped in. The walls are hung with pictures, among them a copy after an old German master and a Japanese-looking landscape, a nod to the fashions the two of them shared. Within a few years their paths split. Tissot lived through the Paris Commune and then left for London, where he built a successful career painting elegant Victorian society, while Degas stayed in Paris and helped organize the first Impressionist show.