At the Milliners by Degas in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 2011

At the Milliner's

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

Date: 1881

Medium: Pastel on five pieces of wove paper, backed with paper, and laid down on canvas

Dimensions: 27 1/4 x 27 1/4 in. (69.2 x 69.2 cm)

Classification: Pastels & Oil Sketches on Paper

Credit Line: The Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg Collection, Gift of Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg, 1997, Bequest of Walter H. Annenberg, 2002

Accession Number: 1997.391.1

Gallery Label:
Two customers in nearly identical dresses—perhaps a mother and daughter or two sisters—are seen from behind in a millinery shop. This pastel may have been conceived originally as a picture of a shopgirl (at left) adjusting a hat on a stand. However, once Degas drew the woman underneath the hat at the right and added the back of the sofa, the identity of the figure at the left was transformed; shopgirls were not allowed to sit.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/437993