Madame Théodore Gobillard (Yves Morisot)

Edgar Degas

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Degas made this highly finished pastel as a preparatory study for a portrait of Yves Gobillard, eldest sister of artist Berthe Morisot. His virtuosic ability with chalks is evident in his depiction of Yves’s face: her slightly upturned nose, the deep creases on either side of her mouth, and her bright eyes, set against pale, luminous skin. The sitter’s mother described this picture as "a very pretty thing, and [drawn] with great skill." In the final portrait, also in the Museum’s collection (29.100.45), Degas adopted a sketchier, less detailed approach to rendering Yves’s distinctive features.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art