At the Races in the Countryside

The title promises a racecourse, but the race is barely there, pushed off to the far edge of the field. What Degas actually painted, on a summer visit in 1869 to his childhood friend Paul Valpincon in Normandy, is a family outing. Valpincon drives the carriage in a top hat. His wife sits beside him under a parasol, and a wet nurse bends over the couple's baby son Henri, born that year. Even the bulldog gets a portrait. Degas had gone to the races and come home with a picture of a christening party on wheels. It was among the works he showed at the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, and one of the earliest paintings he ever sold.