The Millinery Shop
When this work was painted, millinery work (hat making) was considered a prestigious trade, elevating the women who succeeded in the business. Degas addressed this subtle shift in the class hierarchy: He gave his milliner a dress nice enough to be worn by an affluent woman, and though she does not wear the expected hat of a high-class lady, Degas playfully positioned the hat with green trimmings so it seems to sit atop the woman’s head.
Colors in this work
Details
- Artist
- Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas
- Date
- 1879-86
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 100 × 110.7 cm (39 3/8 × 43 9/16 in.); Framed: 132.1 × 142.3 × 9.6 cm (52 × 56 × 3 3/4 in.)
- Origin
- France
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Holding institution
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Palette
-
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- Image provider
- art-institute-chicago
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection
Art Genome Taxonomy
11 tags
Subject Matter
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Scenes of Everyday Life Both · 98%
The image shows a woman examining a hat within a commercial interior, while the catalog identifies the subject as everyday life and genre.
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Related to Fashion Both · 99%
Hats, clothing, gloves, and millinery activity dominate the composition; the catalog explicitly identifies fashion and millinery as central subjects.
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Work and Workers Metadata · 94%
The catalog describes the work as focused on milliners or hatmakers and lists work among its subjects, while also noting ambiguity about whether the figure is an employee or client.
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Human Figure Visual · 99%
A single seated woman is the dominant human figure, shown in profile on the right side of the composition.
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Interiors Visual · 98%
The setting is an enclosed shop interior filled with displayed hats, textiles, and furnishings.
Styles and Movements
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Impressionism Both · 98%
The catalog identifies Impressionism as a style, and the image shows loose, layered brushwork, softened contours, and atmospheric color handling associated with Impressionist painting.
Visual Qualities
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Dense Composition Visual · 96%
Overlapping hats, furniture, textiles, and the figure fill the closely cropped composition, creating little uninterrupted space.
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Dark Colors Visual · 97%
Deep greens, browns, ochers, and muted reds dominate the image, punctuated by brighter green, blue, and pale fabric accents.
Medium and Techniques
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Oil Painting Metadata · 99%
The catalog identifies the work as an oil painting on canvas.
Time Periods
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19th Century Art Metadata · 99%
The catalog dates the work 1879–1886, placing it in the nineteenth century.
Geographic Regions
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French Art Metadata · 99%
The catalog identifies the artist as French and the place of origin as France.
Source & rights
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas. The Millinery Shop. The Art Institute of Chicago.
High-resolution sources
- IIIF image service ↗ 1,686 × 1,531 · Art Institute Chicago · Availability not yet probed