“Pagans and Degas’s Father” sketch
This pastel sketch from 1882 is by the French artist, Edgar Degas, and is called “Pagans and Degas’s Father”. This sketch was a study for an oil painting that Degas completed in 1895 when he was in his sixties, over twenty years after his father, Augustin De Gas, had died. Note that Degas’s father spelled out his last name as De Gas and not Degas.
In this sketch, Degas depicts the Spanish tenor singer, Lorenzo Pagans, reading a book. The setting is at Degas’s father’s house, where Augustin De Gas organized regular salon performances by the Spanish tenor, Lorenzo Pagans. Degas’ father had a love of music that he instilled into his son. The only things missing from the sketch that made it into the final piece are the piano on the left, the table below the books, and Degas’s father in the background.
Degas’s father died in 1874. Degas drew the initial sketch eight years after his father passed. It was one of several post-humous portraits of his father that he made.
The “Pagan’s and Degas’s Father” sketch is currently in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of the United States.
For more on Edgar Degas, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
