National Gallery Imaginarium
Spark your imagination in a virtual space to interact with our paintings.
Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas, 'Hélène Rouart in her Father's Study', about 1886
About the work
Overview
Hélène Rouart stands in her father’s study, her hands resting on the back of his empty chair. Works from his art collection can be seen behind her, including three Egyptian statues in a glass case and, above her, a Chinese wall hanging. Although Degas set down the final composition with little subsequent alteration, he did rework areas of the surface, even applying pastel directly to the canvas.
Hélène was the daughter of the engineer and amateur artist Henri Rouart, a friend of Degas who had a substantial collection of contemporary French painting, including work by Degas. When Hélène was nine, Degas had painted a portrait of her sitting on her father’s knee. She was 23 and married when this portrait was painted, but Degas does not show her wedding ring, perhaps to emphasise her status as a daughter, rather than as a wife.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Hélène Rouart in her Father's Study
- Artist
- Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas
- Artist dates
- 1834 - 1917
- Date made
- about 1886
- Medium and support
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 162.5 × 121 cm
- Acquisition credit
- Bought, 1981
- Inventory number
- NG6469
- Location
- Not on display
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Frame
- 19th-century French Frame
Provenance
Purchased in 1918 by Paul Rosenberg (1881–1959) at the first Degas Studio sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 6–8 May 1918 (lot 110). It was purchased jointly for 27,500 fr. by Rosenberg and Co., Paris and Galerie Georges Bernheim (?), Paris, purchased at above sale (7 May 1918). Purchased by René Gimpel (1881–1945) (for 70,000 fr.) on 27 May 1924 from Galerie Bernheim Jeune, Paris. By descent to Peter Gimpel (1915–2005), who sold the picture to the National Gallery in April 1981.
Additional information
Text extracted from the National Gallery’s Annual Report, ‘The National Gallery Report: January 1980 – December 1981’ and supplemented by Isobel Muir.
Exhibition history
-
2014Degas: Classicism and ExperimentationStaatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe8 November 2014 - 15 February 2015
-
2016Impressionism: Capturing LifeHolburne Museum of Art13 February 2016 - 5 June 2016
-
2021The National Gallery Masterpiece Tour 2020Gallery Oldham18 September 2021 - 8 January 2022Glan-yr-afon14 May 2022 - 3 September 2022Kirkby Gallery10 October 2022 - 17 December 2022
Bibliography
-
1931M. Guérin and D. Halévy, Lettres de Degas, Paris 1931
-
1945D. Rouart, Degas: À la recherche de sa technique, Paris 1945
-
1946P.-A. Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre, Paris 1946
-
1949J. Fèvre, Mon oncle Degas, Geneva 1949
-
1952'Notable Works of Art Now on the Market', The Burlington Magazine, XCIV/597, 1952
-
1958J.S. Boggs, 'Degas Notebooks at the Bibliothèque Nationale III: Group C (1863-1886)', The Burlington Magazine, C/664, 1958, pp. 240-6
-
1962J.S. Boggs, Portraits by Degas, Berkeley 1962
-
1963T. Reff, 'Degas's Copies of Older Art', The Burlington Magazine, CV/723, 1963, pp. 238-51
-
1965T. Reff, 'The Chronology of Degas's Notebooks', The Burlington Magazine, CVII/753, 1965, pp. 606-16
-
1966R. Gimpel, Diary of an Art Dealer, London 1966
-
1968T. Reff, 'The Pictures Within Degas's Pictures', Metropolitan Museum Journal, I, 1968, pp. 125-66
-
1976T. Reff, Degas: The Artist's Mind, London 1976
-
1979J. House and M. Stevens, Post-Impressionism: Cross-Currents in European Painting (exh. cat. Royal Academy of Arts, 17 November 1979 - 16 March 1980; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 25 May - 1 September 1980), London 1979
-
1982National Gallery, The National Gallery Report: January 1980 - December 1981, London 1982
-
1983M. Wilson, French Painting after 1800, London 1983
-
1984D. Gordon, Acquisition in Focus. Edgar Degas: Hélène Rouart in Her Father's Study, London 1984
-
1986D. Sutton, Edgar Degas: Life and Work, New York 1986
-
1988K. Adler, Unknown Impressionists, Oxford 1988
-
1989R. Kendall, Degas: Images of Women (exh. cat. Tate Liverpool, 21 September - 31 December 1989), Liverpool 1989
-
1990A. Distel, Impressionism: The First Collectors 1874-1886, New York 1990
-
1990F. Milner, Degas, London 1990
-
1991M. Clarke, Corot and the Art of Landscape, London 1991
-
1991M. Clarke, 'Degas and Corot: The Affinity Between Two Artists' Artists', Apollo, 1991, pp. 15-20
-
1994F.A. Baumann, M. Karabelnik and J.S. Boggs, Degas: Portraits (exh. cat. Kunsthaus, 2 December 1994 - 5 March 1995), Zurich 1994
-
1995A. Callen, The Spectacular Body, Science, Method and Meaning in the Work of Degas, New Haven 1995
-
1995T. Reff, 'The Morbid Content of Degas' Sculpture', Apollo, 1995, pp. 64-71
-
1996R. Kendall, Degas: Beyond Impressionism (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 22 May - 26 August 1996; Art Institute of Chicago, 28 September 1996 - 5 January 1997), London 1996
-
1997A. Dumas et al., The Private Collection of Edgar Degas (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1 October 1997 - 11 January 1998), New York 1997
-
1998R. White and A. Roy, 'GC-MS and SEM Studies on the Effects of Solvent Cleaning on Old Master Paintings from the National Gallery, London', Studies in Conservation, XLIII/3, 1998, pp. 159-76
-
2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
-
2004F.A. Baumann, Sehnsucht Italien: Corot und die frühe Freilichtmalerei 1780- 1850 (exh. cat. Museum Langmatt, 1 April - 18 July 2004), Heidelberg 2004
-
2004D. Bomford et al., Degas (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 10 November 2004 - 30 January 2005), London 2004
-
2005D. Hansen and W. Herzogenrath, Monet and Camille: Portraits of Women in Impressionism, (exh. cat. Kunsthalle, 15 October 2005 - 26 February 2006), Bremen 2005
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
Images
More works by Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas
(Showing 6 of 16 works)
A woman sits beside a bath, drying her hair. She pitches forward, one arm raised to rub the towel on her neck, the other reaching back awkwardly, perhaps to steady herself or perhaps to grasp the towel on the back of the chair. The ungainly but authentic-looking pose makes it easy to believe that...
Not on display
This is an early example of Degas’s cafe or cafe-concert scenes. Cafes were an important part of Parisian social life, and also provided artists with a rich source of visual spectacle, characters and ‘types’.Two men seated at a corner table examine a newspaper. The figure facing us points to an a...
Not on display
The dancers in Degas’s painting are clouded in a mist of tulle, but two striking heads of red hair seem to anchor the blurred forms moving in space. Arms and legs curve and stretch, delicate white skirts toss and sway. The white tutus depicted here are the practice dress worn by the younger dance...
A maid combs the hair of a girl who has been swimming; her bathing suit is stretched out on the ground to dry. Other objects – two parasols, a basket and a summer bonnet – are scattered around. A family group (some members wrapped in towels) is leaving the shoreline, as other people stroll in the...
On display elsewhere
Women combing their hair, or having it combed, often appear in Degas’s work, and this painting is one of his boldest treatments of the subject. A maid, wearing her servant’s uniform, combs the hair of her seated mistress, who is not yet fully dressed. Pulled back by the force of the strokes, the...
The Cirque Fernando was built in 1875 near the Place Pigalle in Paris, close to where Degas lived. He saw Miss La La perform there several times. Born Anna Albertine Olga Brown (1858-1945), she was a mixed-race circus performer famous for her feats of strength. Olga is especially known as the inv...
Elena Carafa was Degas’s first cousin. Her mother, Stefanina, the Duchessa Montejasi-Cicerale, was the youngest sister of Degas’s father. Like many members of Degas’s family they lived in Naples, which Degas himself returned to in the winter of 1873–4, when he accompanied his dying father there....
Princess Pauline Sander (1836–1921) was the wife of Prince Richard Metternich, the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador at the court of Napoleon III from 1860 to 1871. Known as the ‘ambassadress of pleasure’, she was a glamorous figure in Parisian high society during the Second Empire. A pioneer of fashio...
In the late 1890s a number of dance troupes from Eastern Europe visited Paris and performed at the Moulin Rouge, the Folies-Bergère, the Casino de Paris and at a brasserie near Degas’s Montmartre home. This pastel may have been one of three showing ‘dancers in Russian costume’ that Degas showed a...
Not on display
The painting illustrates a passage from the Life of Lycurgus by the Roman historian Plutarch, which describes how Spartan girls were ordered to engage in exercise – including running, wrestling and throwing the discus and javelin – and to challenge boys. However, this may be a scene of courtship...
You've viewed 6 of 16 works