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by Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas painted these junior hat makers in 1882, showing two women absorbed in creating beautiful objects with artist-like craft. They put finishing touches on elegant chapeaus using coarse straw, velvet ribbons, and fluffy ostrich feathers. The title indicates they're assistants, beyond apprenticeship but not yet lead trimmers.
Degas created over 20 paintings, pastels, and drawings of millinery shops during three decades. No other modern painter depicted this subject with such frequency. Paris was the hat-making capital of the world, and Degas showed affinity for these craftswomen. Now at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City.
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
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Luxury wall art with the same mood and energy. Gallery-quality canvas, no museum crowds.
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