Woman in a Ruffled Cap (1859–60): Art, History and Details

Woman in a Ruffled Cap (1859–60) 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:

Although Edgar Degas is known for his depictions of modern Parisian life, early in his career the artist focused on portraiture. This etching was created after time spent closely studying the prints of Northern master Rembrandt van Rijn at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Degas emulated the elder artist’s distinctive mark making to record the likeness of this woman, whose identity is unknown today. Like many of Degas’s prints, this work was never editioned and exists in only four impressions.

Object facts

• Title: Woman in a Ruffled Cap
• Date: 1859–60
• Creator attribution: Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917)
• Type: Print
• Technique: etching on wove paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 14.7 x 11.2 cm (5 13/16 x 4 7/16 in.); Plate: 11.9 x 8.7 cm (4 11/16 x 3 7/16 in.); Image: 10.2 x 7.5 cm (4 x 2 15/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Etching
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2022.257

A detail from the museum

Early scholars believed that this print might be a portrait of Edgar Degas’s mother. Today, instead, it has been tied to a drawing of the same year that depicts a similar but unidentified woman sewing.

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Galerie Manzi-Joyant (Paris, France). Eaux-fortes, vernis-mous, aqua-tintes par Edgar Degas et provenant de son atelier. 1918.
• Art Impressionniste et modern, dont un ensemble d’œuvres provenant de l’atelier Degas. Paris: Christie’s, 2006.
• Degas, Edgar. Edgar Degas, 1834-1917: Etchings, Lithographs, Monotypes & Copper Plates. Islip [England]: N.G. Stogdon, 2006.

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.