Detail of The Bellelli Family by Degas in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 2023

Title: Family Portrait (The Bellelli Family)

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

Date: 1858–69

Geography: Country of Origin France

Culture: French

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 79 1/8 × 98 1/4 in. (201 × 249.5 cm)
Framed: 94 5/16 in. × 9 ft. 6 in., 218.3 lb. (239.5 × 289.5 cm, 99 kg)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 2210)

It is difficult to trace the history of this painting, an exceptionally large portrait of Degas’s beloved relatives in Florence. Among the artist’s largest canvases, it was a sensation when it was rediscovered at his studio sale after his death in 1918. Degas may have worked on it while he was in Florence in the 1850s or painted it from numerous studies after he had returned to Paris. The audacious portrait shows his austere aunt braced by her two daughters and standing apart from her husband, who sits with his back to the viewer.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/845051