A Cotton Office in New Orleans
Degas's uncle's cotton brokerage in New Orleans, its partners and clerks at work among heaps of raw cotton — the building is gone.
New Orleans
The painting depicts a real landscape or cityscape. The precise viewpoint the artist used may be unknown, so the marker shows the general area.
A Cotton Office in New Orleans — at a glance
- Artist
- Edgar Degas (1834–1917)
- Year
- 1873
- Movement
- Impressionism / Realism
- Place
- Musson, Prestidge & Co., 63 Carondelet Street, New Orleans, USA
- Viewpoint
- A real cotton office — the firm failed in 1873 and the building is gone
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 73 × 92 cm
- Now at
- Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau, France
Overview
A Cotton Office in New Orleans is a group portrait Edgar Degas painted in early 1873 while staying with his American relatives in Louisiana. In a long office, fourteen men — Degas's uncle Michel Musson, his brothers René and Achille De Gas, partners and clerks — examine, sort, weigh and discuss raw cotton, with a table of loose cotton in the foreground, ledgers, a newspaper and a cash desk. It is oil on canvas, about 73 by 92 cm, and it hangs in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau, in south-west France.
The story behind the painting
Scholarship Degas's mother was from a Creole family in New Orleans, and he spent five months there in 1872–73 visiting his uncle Michel Musson, a cotton broker, and his own two brothers who had settled in the city. He painted several family portraits and this office scene, which he hoped to sell to a textile manufacturer in Manchester. In 1878 it was bought by the museum in Pau — the first painting by Degas to enter any public collection.
Where was A Cotton Office in New Orleans painted?
Scholarship The office is that of Musson, Prestidge & Co., cotton factors, at 63 Carondelet Street in the business district of New Orleans. The firm failed in the financial panic of 1873, soon after Degas left, and the building on Carondelet Street no longer stands, so the interior he painted is gone. New Orleans marks the connection: a plaque and the ‘Degas House’ (the family's rented home on Esplanade Avenue, now a museum and inn) commemorate his stay.
What is in the painting?
Michel Musson sits in the foreground testing a handful of cotton fibre; behind him René De Gas reads a newspaper, tilted back in a chair; Achille leans against a window frame at the left. A partner bends over a long table spread with white cotton at the centre; clerks work at a ledger and a wall of pigeonholes; a man examines cotton by the window; another stands at a cash desk. The room is lit evenly by tall windows.
Look closely
Michel Musson testing cotton
Degas's uncle sits in the foreground pulling apart a handful of raw cotton to judge its quality.
René reading the paper
One of Degas's brothers tips back in a chair reading a newspaper, ignoring the business around him.
The cotton table
A long table spread with loose white cotton at the centre, a partner bent over it — the bright heart of the room.
The pigeonhole wall
Clerks work at a wall of document pigeonholes and a heavy ledger at the right.
Analysis
Composition & perspective
A deep, sharply receding room seen from one corner, the many figures scattered at different distances and absorbed in separate tasks.
Scholarship Degas uses a steep, photographic perspective down the office and places the figures at varied depths, each caught mid-action and not posed for the viewer. The white mass of cotton on the central table and the foreground handful anchor the design; the effect is of a real, working moment glanced at from the door.
Colour and light
Sober blacks, browns and greys of business dress, lifted by the white of cotton, shirtfronts and paper.
The palette is restrained and indoor — dark suits, brown furniture, olive walls — with the white cotton, ledgers and collars supplying the light notes and leading the eye through the room. The daylight from the windows is cool and flat.
History & provenance
Bought by the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau in 1878 through a local bequest fund, it was the first work by Degas acquired by a museum, and remains in Pau.
Sources
- Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau — collection entry for Edgar Degas, ‘Portraits dans un bureau (Nouvelle-Orléans)’ / ‘A Cotton Office in New Orleans’ (1873)
- Gail Feigenbaum et al., ‘Degas and New Orleans: A French Impressionist in America’ (New Orleans Museum of Art, 1999)
Frequently asked
Whose office is this?
The New Orleans cotton brokerage of Musson, Prestidge & Co., at 63 Carondelet Street. The man testing cotton in the foreground is Degas's uncle Michel Musson; two of the other figures are Degas's brothers René and Achille.
Why was Degas in New Orleans?
His mother came from a Creole family there. He spent about five months in 1872–73 visiting his uncle and his two brothers, who had settled in the city, and painted family portraits and this office scene.
Can you visit the office?
No. The firm failed in the 1873 financial panic and the Carondelet Street building is gone. New Orleans marks the connection with a plaque and the ‘Degas House’ on Esplanade Avenue, the family's rented home, now a museum and inn.
Why is the painting historically important?
When the museum in Pau bought it in 1878, it became the first painting by Degas to enter any public collection.
Where is the painting now?
In the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau, in south-west France.
Related paintings
More by Edgar Degas
L'Absinthe
Young Spartans Exercising
Place de la Concorde
