Degas House
Creole mansion where an Impressionist master lived and painted while his eyesight was failing.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Degas House in New Orleans follows Edgar Degas during a five-month stay in 1872 and 1873 with his mother's family on Esplanade Avenue, a visit he told almost no one was complicated by failing eyesight he had quietly discovered two years earlier. It traces his portrait of his cousin and sister-in-law Estelle, herself nearly blind, and the choice he made in how to pose a woman who could not see him back. Down the hall, in what is now the front parlor, he painted the picture that made his name, a scene of his uncle's cotton office already sliding toward collapse. Stand in this hallway and consider what a nearly blind painter was really looking for.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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