Giovanna Bellelli

On the back of this small canvas Degas wrote the girl's nickname, Nini Bellelli, together with the word Naples and his own name. Giovanna was his cousin, born in 1848, so she was about eight when he painted her. Degas had reached the city in July 1856 to stay with relatives, and he sat the child for a head-and-shoulders study barely 27 centimetres high. She wears a black band in her hair and a tiny earring, and looks straight out with pale blue eyes. The face is worked with care, while the white blouse is laid in with a few quick, light strokes. She appears again later, standing beside her mother and sister in the large family portrait, now also at the Musée d'Orsay. This little head stayed with cousins in Naples until the Friends of the Louvre gave it to the national museums in 1932.