About this work
*Madame René de Gas* (1872–73) is an oil on canvas , and one of Degas's most quietly devastating portraits. The subject is Estelle Musson Balfour de Gas, the artist's first cousin and sister-in-law, painted during his 1872–1873 visit to New Orleans. She is shown in a three-quarter pose, seated and turned slightly away, her gaze open yet directed at nothing — her overly calm pose and sightless, open eyes turned away from the spectator subtly conveying the loneliness of the blind.
The soft focus of the painting, subdued and nearly monochromatic color harmonies, and Estelle's unfocused gaze parallel her limited visual capacity.
Degas's brush moves with particular deftness and lightness here — this is widely regarded as his most "silvery" portrait. The composition is stripped of the incidental props and activities Degas typically used to animate his sitters; posture, gesture, accessories, and activities were often used by Degas to characterize his portrait subjects — and their deliberate omission here is an equally informative decision.
The portrait was painted during Degas's extended visit to New Orleans in 1872–73, and the 1871 discovery of the deterioration of his own vision had sensitized him deeply to Estelle's near-blindness when he arrived.
Scholar John Rewald believed Degas painted her just before the birth of her fourth child — for whom Degas was to stand as godfather — and that her ample gown was chosen to conceal her condition. The New Orleans trip was a singular detour in Degas's career, pulling him from the Parisian theaters and cafés he knew intimately into the humid domesticity of American family life. Among the several family portraits he produced during the visit, this is widely considered the most successful.
The artist found "the tenderness of the eighteenth century" in the manner of his New Orleans family — and that quality of grace and emotional restraint is precisely what lifts this work above the personal into the universal. It now resides in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
The painting suits a room that earns its stillness — a study lined with books, a bedroom with neutral walls, or a sitting room where natural light comes in softly from one side. Its near-monochromatic palette of silvers and muted warms asks nothing of its surroundings and rewards unhurried looking. There is a sense — often noted — that Estelle may be listening to music, as Degas frequently painted people in such moments of absorption; she was herself a talented musician and loved opera. The viewer who lingers with this portrait will find it less a record of a person than a meditation
