Getty Museum

[Seated Nude]

Creator

French Photographer · 1834–1917

Artist

> No art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament . . . I know nothing. > > --Edgar Germaine Hilaire Degas From a wealthy Parisian family, Degas devoted himself exclusively to painting without needing to sell a canvas. His training was conventional: he spent five years in Italy, studied the O

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Date: 1895
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Culture: French
Department: Photographs
Institution: Getty Museum

Like Edgar Degas's *Nude (Drying Herself),* this photograph of a woman putting on stockings shares the specific theme, the awkward intimacy, and the formal compositional qualities of some of his drawings and paintings of women in various stages of undress. Degas, a bachelor, showed a strong curiosity about the private, everyday rituals women perform--bathing, dressing, and ironing. Yet he would have had few opportunities to candidly observe a woman in this position. Scholars are uncertain whether Degas posed an artist's model in his studio or actually took his camera to a brothel.

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