Getty Museum

Woman Seated

Date

1877

Medium

Drawing

Culture

French

Department

Drawings

Institution

Getty Museum

With her legs open and outstretched, a prostitute relaxes in a large, comfortable armchair. She wears only a thin negligée tied with ribbons on the shoulders, small slippers, and a black ribbon tied provocatively around her neck. Her loose hair hangs around her shoulders as she leans her head on the back of the chair and surveys the scene through half-closed lids. At the upper left, Edgar Degas began but never completed another sketch of her face. Degas used quick, abrupt strokes to capture the flowing fabric that covers the armchair and falls in gathers on the floor. The folds of the woman's gown emphasize the lines of her body beneath. Glimpses of her knees and the shape of her legs show through the thin fabric. Scholars believe that Degas may have based this sketch on a scene from Edmond de Goncourt's novel *La Fille Elisa* (The Girl Elisa). The book tells the tragic story of a girl who becomes a prostitute, first in the country and then in a poor quarter of Paris near the École Militaire.

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