Portraits at the Stock Exchange

Portraits at the Stock Exchange

Portraits at the Stock Exchange

Artist:Edgar Degas (French, Paris 1834–1917 Paris)
Date:ca. 1878–79
Medium:Pastel on paper, pieced, and laid down on canvas
Dimensions:28 3/8 x 22 7/8 in. (72.1 x 58.1 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:Gift of Janice H. Levin, 1991

This study for an oil painting by Degas of 1878–79 (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) depicts the financier and collector Ernest May (1845–1925) under the portico of the Paris stock exchange. At the time, May was in his early thirties and just beginning to expand his acquisitions from old master and eighteenth-century pictures to works by Degas, Manet, and their colleagues.

Provenance
the sitter, Ernest May, Paris (bought from the artist; until d. 1925); his son, Jacques-Ernest May, Paris (1925–at least 1946); [Rosenberg & Stiebel, New York]; Norton Simon, Pasadena (until 1971; his sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, May 5, 1971, no. 36, for $185,000 to Levin); Philip and Janice H. Levin, New York (his d. 1971); Janice H. Levin, New York (1971–d. 2001)

Copyright Image
https://images.metmuseum.org