Artwork story
About A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers (Madame Paul Valpinçon?)
The artist and artwork
Edgar Degas painted A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers in 1865 in oil on canvas. This early work stands between the academic history painting for which he trained and the modern, off-balance scenes that defined his career. Degas had copied Renaissance masters at the Louvre, studied line and draftsmanship, and traveled in Italy. A dated pencil study preceded the painting, reinforcing that its apparently accidental arrangement was carefully planned.
The world around it
Paris in the 1860s was being remade under Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann as boulevards, parks, commerce, and new leisure reshaped modern life. The official Salon remained an artist's main public proving ground. In 1865 it accepted Degas's history painting The Misfortunes of the City of Orléans; afterward, he abandoned academic subjects for contemporary experience. This quieter interior marks that turn without depicting a boulevard, theater, racetrack, or any later Impressionist spectacle.
A detail to notice
The sitter may be Madame Paul Valpinçon, wife of Degas's school friend, but the identification remains uncertain. Dahlias, asters, and gaillardias suggest a late-summer visit to the family's country house at Ménil-Hubert. Yet the bouquet occupies the center and pushes the woman against the right edge, where her hand reaches her mouth, her gaze slips away, and her other hand is cropped. A glass pitcher and discarded gloves deepen the still life. Degas makes it impossible to decide whether the flowers accompany a portrait or the person interrupts a flower painting.
Look closer: materials, scale, and subjects
The recorded object is painting made in Oil on canvas and held in the European Paintings department.
Recorded dimensions include 29 x 36 1/2 in. (73.7 x 92.7 cm).
Subject terms include Women, Flowers, and Pitchers. Treat them as guideposts, not a complete interpretation.
Collection history and public-domain source
The collection credit line is H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929.
The individual artwork page and official image were verified as Public Domain on 2026-08-23.
No Context Gallery independently uses the public-domain image. The source museum has not endorsed, sponsored, or affiliated itself with these products.
Research sources
See the products currently available with this artwork. Product choices appear only when the exact item is published, in stock, and available to purchase.
