
Wikimedia Commons • Public Domain
by Edgar Degas
French artist Edgar Degas painted this early work in 1857 during his time in Italy, depicting an elderly woman in poverty. She sits on a threshold, gazing into the distance, surrounded by the meager belongings of her existence. The work shows Degas grappling with traditional subjects before developing his later style.
Degas spent nearly two years in Italy studying Renaissance masters. This portrait of poverty demonstrates his early commitment to honest observation, rendering age and hardship without idealization. With just four colors, he created a powerful image of human dignity. It hangs at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Edward Burne-Jones
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, Birmingham

John Everett Millais
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, Birmingham

William Holman Hunt
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, Birmingham

John Everett Millais
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, Birmingham
Other masterpieces from the Impressionism movement

Claude Monet, 1926
Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris

Claude Monet, 1875
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881
The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

James McNeill Whistler, 1871
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Claude Monet, 1899
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Claude Monet, 1872
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
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