Hilaire de Gas

An old man sits in the corner of a sofa, an ivory-handled cane across his lap. He is the painter's grandfather, eighty-seven years old, and the young Degas painted him in Naples in 1857.

The story behind the painting

René Hilaire De Gas, the painter's grandfather, moved to Naples after the turbulent years of the French Revolution. There he went into business and became a rich and cultured banker. The young Edgar, after training in France, completed his studies by visiting his grandfather in Naples, a lively cultural city at the time. The canvas is dated at the upper right, Capodimonte 1857. After several moves it found its permanent home in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, inventory number RF 3661.

What to look for

Hilaire sits in the corner of a sofa with composure, dressed for the occasion in a white waistcoat, grey trousers and a black jacket that underline his distinguished air. Yet his slightly tired face and the ivory-handled cane on his lap reveal the weight of his eighty-seven years. The picture is built on a grid: horizontal lines along the sofa, the upright vertical of his figure, and the diagonal of his left arm resting easily on the armrest, which steadies the whole scene.

Meaning and intent

The cane speaks of age, but also of his role as head of the family, and it gives an impression of natural authority. The composition follows Renaissance rules, and the palette of ochre and black shows the strong influence of Degas's teachers Flandrin and Lamothe. Still, the young painter already goes beyond them with a soft, luminous yellow that, in the words of Alessandra Borgogelli, lights the whole composition. The informal, not too official pose gives the scene more life than his teachers' portraits.

Legacy

The Spanish Wikipedia article calls this canvas one of the absolute peaks of Degas's portraiture. It was not his only image of the old banker. Degas also drew his grandfather in three pencil drawings in 1856, and painted a second oil in 1857 that stayed unfinished, showing René Hilaire seated at a table, reading the newspaper attentively with a green hat on his head. Today the finished portrait, about 53 by 41 cm, hangs in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.