The Millinery Shop by Degas in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 2023

Title: The Millinery Shop

Artist: Edgar Degas (French, Paris 1834–1917 Paris)

Date: ca. 1879–86

Geography: Country of Origin France

Culture: French

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 39 3/8 × 43 9/16 in. (100 × 110.7 cm)
Framed: 52 × 56 × 3 3/4 in., 69 lb. (132.1 × 142.2 × 9.5 cm, 31.3 kg)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection (1933.428)

Paris in the late nineteenth century was the center of the fashion industry, and the millinery trade was no exception, counting nearly a thousand hat shops in the city. Degas produced more than twenty millinery-themed works, making the subject central to his study of modern Parisian women. Viewed from above as if by a standing customer, the woman here appears to be a shop clerk, her lips pursed around a pin as she carefully examines a hat.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/844681