Degas’ portrait of his younger sister Marguerite was executed circa 1858-60, most likely upon his return to Paris from his three year stay in Italy. The work is closely connected to the two oil portraits of Marguerite which are held at the Musée d’Orsay and display the same facial expression and front-on pose (figs. 1 & 3). Born in Paris in 1842, Marguerite was eight years younger than Edgar and became one of the artist’s favourite models and the subject of his most intimate drawings.

The present work and Degas’ drawings in general reflect the influence of Ingres on his career as an artist. Degas regarded the older master ‘as the first star in the firmament of French Art’ (quoted in Theodre Reff, Degas: The Artist’s Mind, New York, 1976, p. 48), who achieved the greatest subtlety and nuance in his articulation of line and shading (fig. 2). Ingres’ influence was particularly strong in the latter half of the 1850s when Degas was being taught by Louis Lamothe, a pupil of Ingres.

Marguerite would have been in her late teenage years when this work was executed. Degas employs the medium of pencil and charcoal to convey the dreamy melancholy of adolescence. Rediscovered by the Romantics, Degas manifested his belonging to the tradition of the ‘psychological portrait’. The present work is delicately executed, reflecting the sensitivity of Marguerite who had artistic tendencies and trained as a singer. Degas worked extensively in this medium and this portrait is a brilliant example of what Ronald Pickvance described as the ‘increased naturalism and a looser, more expressive manner of drawing’, evident in the artist’s early works (Ronald Pickvance & Jaromír Pecirka, Degas: Drawings, London, 1963, p. 12).