Famous for his dancers, Edgar Degas (1834–1917) is often considered one of the masters of Impressionism, a classification he refuted; the painter defined himself as a realist and an independent. Keen on the study of movement, he became attached to all the motifs that represented life: dance, of course, but also horse racing. Like his friend Manet, Degas was one of the great painters of modern life, of cafe scenes, brothels, milliners, laundresses… The work of this Parisian and bourgeois artist, very cultivated and collector, is marked by his knowledge of the great masters, and Ingres in particular, of whom he was considered as one of the heirs by the quality of his line.
