The Millinery Shop

Edgar Degas usually trained his modern-life subjects on the ballet studio, the racecourse, and the rehearsal hall, so his turn to the millinery trade about 1882 marks a striking swerve. The milliner and her shelf-lined shop formed a small series in these years, of which this large canvas is the most ambitious, its stacked hats arranged with a bright, patterned decorum reminiscent of the Japanese prints Degas collected. Depicting the working woman of the new city with the same dispassion he brought to his laundresses, the picture stands among the works with which the artist argued that modern life, not history, was the proper theme of painting. The painting is held in the Art Institute of Chicago.