Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
A Cotton Office in New Orleans
Edgar Degas French
Not on view
During his sojourn in New Orleans, Degas painted the lively office of his family’s cotton business. The artist’s maternal uncle, pictured in the foreground, assesses the quality of the valuable commodity, while his brother René reads the local Daily Times-Picyune and his other brother Achille leans casually against a counter at left, looking on as employees busy themselves with activity. Degas had hoped to sell the painting to a cotton spinner in Manchester. Ultimately acquired by the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Pau in 1878, this work was the artist’s first to enter a public collection.
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