The Private Collection of Edgar Degas

This volume represents a reconstruction of Edgar Degas' private collection of over 5000 paintings, drawings and prints. It came to light at his death in 1917 and has long since been dispersed. The collection featured many works by the French 19th-century masters, Delacroix, Ingres and Daumier. It also demonstrated Degas' profound interest in the art of his contemporaries, particularly Manet, Cezanne, Gauguin, van Gogh and Cassatt. Degas' passionate pursuit of the art he admired, his relationships with other artists, his desire to found a museum, and the sale of his work at auction in 1918 as the bombs fell on Paris, are among the topics discussed in 11 accompanying essays.