Portrait of Rene-Hillaire De Gas

Edgar Degas executed this portrait of his grandfather René-Hilaire de Gas in 1857 at the family's summer villa in Capodimonte, near Naples. The elderly patriarch, then in his late eighties, sits in a domestic interior that conveys both comfort and dignity. He would die the following year in August 1858.

René-Hilaire de Gas (1769/1770–1858) was born in Orléans and fled France during the Revolution to establish a banking business in Naples. He became a wealthy banker and art collector, founding the de Gas family fortune that allowed his grandson to pursue art without financial pressure during his early career.

During frequent trips to Italy, Degas painted numerous pictures of his Neapolitan relatives, beginning with this family patriarch. The portrait shows the influence of Italian Renaissance masters that Degas was studying during his extended Italian sojourn from 1856 to 1859. A related drawing at Harvard Art Museums bears the inscription "Mon grand père Degas, Capodimonte 1857."

René-Hilaire appears posthumously in Degas's famous painting "The Bellelli Family" as a framed portrait on the wall. His daughter Laura wears mourning dress for her recently deceased father. The Musée d'Orsay holds this portrait, connecting it to Degas's larger body of family works.