![Edgar Degas - Sulking [c.1870] by Gandalf's Gallery](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_unbMUKE5iuHa_OFQAcyHrdQ3b4mkWA5AW2mEcRxSc95U1m4ixrmaMNpMttHLuV-Dgl22Yw2lMzdEMeG38O9wqsv-u-ool8v4kLK2KLxxMm_b2_tZJSKXLGQc4oB3CDxw=s0-d)
Like several of Degas' genre pictures from the late 1860s and early 1870s, this painting seems to reflect a literary or theatrical source. None has been found, yet the drama that exists between the man and woman continues to invite speculation. Are they a husband and wife, a man and his lover, a father and his daughter, a banker and his client, a woman placing bets on horse races? The ambiguity of the relationship harbours an endless fascination.
The picture's anecdotal character is reminiscent of Victorian painting, which Degas studied in the British section of the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris. When he was working on this canvas, Degas was closely allied with James Tissot, the most Anglophilic of French artists. Degas asked the writer Edmond Duranty and the young model Emma Dobigny, who had been a favorite of Corot, Puvis, and Tissot, to pose for him. The racing print behind them is Degas's careful copy of a colour lithograph by J. F. Herring.
[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 32.4 x 46.4 cm]
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