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Lot Essay
Executed circa 1884 Jeunes filles regardant un album belongs to a period in which conversation pieces feature strongly in Degas's work. The sitters are usually engaged in a linked activity, reading, talking or comparing hats, many of these celebrated works are now in major international museums. In the present work the two women are engaged in looking at an album. The grace with which Degas has captured their subtle movements can be compared to other celebrated examples from this period, notably La conversation chez la modiste (L. 774), now in the National Gallery, Berlin and Deux femmes appuyées a une barrière (L. 710), previously in the Chester-Beatty collection.
Degas's use of pastel had become the dominant medium in the artist's work from the mid-1880s. The immediacy of pastel was pefectly suited to capturing the sort of reportage from Parisian life that preoccupies him in this composition. Degas uses a very refined range of colours to concentrate our attention. The pinks of the dresses is particularily fresh and vibrant and black pastel is used only economically to suggest form and movement.
Deux jeunes filles regardant un album was included in the celebrated Degas, Portraits exhibition at the Kunsthaus, Zurich in 1994-1995 and more recently in Chefs-d'oeuvre de la Collection Rau at the Musée de Luxembourg, Paris.
Degas's use of pastel had become the dominant medium in the artist's work from the mid-1880s. The immediacy of pastel was pefectly suited to capturing the sort of reportage from Parisian life that preoccupies him in this composition. Degas uses a very refined range of colours to concentrate our attention. The pinks of the dresses is particularily fresh and vibrant and black pastel is used only economically to suggest form and movement.
Deux jeunes filles regardant un album was included in the celebrated Degas, Portraits exhibition at the Kunsthaus, Zurich in 1994-1995 and more recently in Chefs-d'oeuvre de la Collection Rau at the Musée de Luxembourg, Paris.