The Collector Of Prints

In this scene, cheap, outmoded prints-colored lithographs by the flower painter Pierre-Joseph Redoute-are coupled with a fashionable Tang dynasty horse and Japanese fabrics pinned on the bulletin board to typify an old-fashioned collector, obsessively accumulating an array of artworks. The depiction of individuals, interrupted at tasks amid settings that reveal clues about their character, was developed by Degas in numerous figure paintings of the 1860s and early 1870s.