Two Sketches

Focusing on the performer's expression and gestures, Edgar Degas quickly captured a café singer absorbed in her song. Two black lines form her closed eyes, a small oval serves as her nose, and a circle is her mouth. With a quick flurry of strokes, her dress puddles around her feet, while an irregular zigzagging line forms the ruffled edge of her bodice. On the right, another singer makes a deep curtsy toward the upturned face of a male spectator.

As a youth, Degas was instructed by his teacher Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres to "use lines, young man, many lines, both to remember as well as to copy nature." Quick sketches such as these two were vital tools for the artist to record a specific performance he attended or person he had observed as he prepared for a more elaborate painting or print.