PUBLIC DOMAIN 12:257

Sulking

$10

Edgar Degas

Sulking , 1870

Oil on canvas

Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

In Sulking, Edgar Degas stages a small domestic standoff. A young woman leans into an office desk with practiced defiance while a man slumps beside her, buried in papers and willful distraction. The exact nature of their relationship is unclear, but the choreography of bodies and the title itself point to intimacy soured, a silence thick with things already said and worse left alone. Send this as a cheeky surprise to the friend awaiting divorce papers, or to the family member who understands that shared bloodlines come with long memories and short tempers.

Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

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