Portrait of a young woman

In 1867 Edgar Degas was still a portrait painter more than the man who would soon chase dancers and racehorses. He was 33, exhibiting at the Salon, and studying the older masters he admired, above all the clean line of Ingres. This small canvas, barely larger than an open hand, shows a young woman in dark clothes against a pale ground. The face is worked with care while the rest stays loose and unfinished, the way Degas often left a private study. She is thought to be someone close to him, likely a relative, though the sitter has never been fixed with certainty. It passed through private collections for decades before reaching the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.