Henri Michel-Levy by Degas in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 2023

Title: Henri Michel-Lévy

Artist: Edgar Degas (French, Paris 1834–1917 Paris)

Date: ca. 1878

Geography: Country of Origin France

Culture: French

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 15 3/4 × 11 in. (40 × 28 cm)
Framed: 21 7/8 × 16 3/4 × 2 1/16 in. (55.5 × 42.5 × 5.3 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon – Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (420)


Henri Michel-Lévy was an artist friend who exhibited at the Salon and had links to Degas’s wider circle. Neither a portrait in the traditional sense nor a depiction of an artist at work, this scene is ambiguous, suggesting a cryptic and unsettling narrative. The artist leans against his own painting on the wall, in a stance not unlike that of the man in Degas’s Interior (shown nearby), while the lifeless body of a mannequin, which had been used to model the figure in the painting shown at left, is slumped beside him on the floor. Both figures are cornered on the other side of an open paint box, which could belong to either Degas or Michel-Lévy.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/844725