Edgar Degas - Place de la Concorde

Degas' real name was de Gas. He changed it in 1873. He trained as a lawyer. He was once present when one of his paintings was sold at auction for $100,000. When asked how he felt, he said: ' I feel as a horse must feel when the beautiful cup is given to the jockey'.

"No art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and study; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament, I know nothing." EDGAR DEGAS

Place de la Concorde

from www.bbc.co.uk

Place de la Concorde or Viscount Lepic and his Daughters Crossing the Place de la Concorde or Ludovic Lepic and his Daughter is an 1875 oil by Edgar Degas. It depicts the cigar smoking Vicomte Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic, his daughters, and his dog, and a solitary man on the left in Place de la Concorde in Paris. Tuileries Gardens can be seen in the background behind a stone wall. The Vicomte Lepic was an aristocrat, artist, and flâneur. Many art historians believe that the large amount of negative space, the cropping and the way in which the figures are facing in random directions was influenced by photography.
This signal artwork was considered lost for four decades following World War II, until the Russian authorities put it on exhibit at the Hermitage Museum, where it remains to this day. It was stolen by the Red Army from the German collector Otto Gerstenberg during the post-World War II Soviet occupation of Germany.

Degas also painted the Viscount Lepic and His Daughters in separate 1870 painting.

Count Lepic and His Daughters