A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers (Madame Paul Valpinçon?)

A rare early union of still life and figure, this canvas belongs to Degas’s exploratory decade before he settled on the ballet. Painted in 1865, it shows the young artist still charting his course between history painting and portraiture; the sitter is thought to be Madame Paul Valpinçon, whose husband was a family friend and early patron of Degas. It is among the first flower pieces he would produce over the following decades.