Degas undertook a series of landscape monotypes during a visit in October 1890 to the Burgundian estate of his friend, the artist Pierre-Georges Jeanniot. Over the course of the next two years, he made about fifty monotypes, a group of which he exhibited at the Durand-Ruel gallery in 1892. Although the artist called these views "imaginary landscapes," the present work is thought to reflect his experience traveling through Burgundy in a horse-drawn carriage. Using colored oil paints, overlaid with scumbled pastels, Degas produced a view of a mountainous landscape, partially obscured by mist, which verges on abstraction.

Open full-size image