Madame Théodore Gobillard (Yves Morisot, 1838–1893)

Edgar Degas

Oil on canvas

Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this intimate portrait, Edgar Degas captures Yves Morisot—sister of the celebrated Impressionist Berthe Morisot—reclining pensively on a sofa, her gaze drifting toward a sunlit window beyond the room's shadowed interior. Degas's loose, tonal brushwork and muted palette of browns and golds lend the scene a quiet psychological intimacy, a hallmark of his early portraiture before he turned fully to dancers and racecourses. As a founding figure of Impressionism who prized drawing and observation over spontaneity, Degas here blends classical composure with modern informality, creating a mood both contemplative and warmly domestic. This subtle, atmospheric work brings a layered sense of nineteenth-century Parisian life and artistic kinship into any room.