The family tomb of French artist Edgar Degas. Most people do not know that Degas mother Célestine Musson De Gas, was a Creole from New Orleans. In 1872 Degas began an 5 month extended stay in New Orleans, Louisiana, where his brother René and a number of other relatives lived. Staying at the home of his Creole uncle, Michel Musson, on Esplanade Avenue. Degas created 18 paintings, 4 drawings and 5 letters while in New Orleans. One of Degas's New Orleans works, A Cotton Office in New Orleans, garnered favorable attention back in France, and was his only work purchased by a museum (the Pau) during his lifetime. — at Cimetière de Montmartre.
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Actually I did know that Degas spent some time in New Orleans but I have no idea why the family was split in the first place.
ReplyDeleteWere they all re-united together in the family tomb in Cimetière de Montmartre?
Hey Hels, Degas immediate Paris family is in the tomb. Both of Degas parents were not from France. His father, Augustin (or Auguste) de Gas, was a semi aristocratic banker from Naples. His mother, who died when young Edgar was only 13, was Celestine Musson, and came from a French creole family from New Orleans, Louisiana.
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