Victoria Dubourg (c. 1866): Art, History and Details

Victoria Dubourg (c. 1866) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This drawing is one of several studies that Edgar Degas created for a painted portrait of the artist Victoria Dubourg, now in the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art. Here, Degas concentrated on the facial expression of Dubourg, known for her still-lifes of flowers. Attempting to precisely render Dubourg's direct gaze, Degas drew her eyes in greater detail, even adding an additional sketch along the sheet's upper margin.

Object facts

• Title: Victoria Dubourg
• Date: c. 1866
• Creator attribution: Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: graphite
• Dimensions: Sheet: 30.9 x 21.9 cm (12 3/16 x 8 5/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1951.483

A detail from the museum

Around the time this drawing was made, its subject, Victoria Dubourg, became engaged to the artist Henri Fantin-Latour, also a friend of Degas.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. Lewis B. Williams Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue des tableaux, pastels, et dessins par Edgar Degas et provenant de son atelier...2e vente. Paris: Georges Petit, 1918.
• Lemoisne, P. A. Degas et son oeuvre. Paris: Brame and De Hauke, 1946).
• French Drawings and Water Colors, Supplement to The Painting of France Since the French Revolution. Exh. Cat. San Francisco: M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, 1941.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.