''Portraits at the Stock Exchange'' (also known as ''At the Bourse'') is a painting by the French artist

Edgar Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is es ...

. Completed in about 1879, the painting was already in the collection of the French banker Ernest May when it was listed in the catalogue of the fourth Impressionist exhibition that year. It may also have been shown in the next Impressionist exhibit in 1880, but it was not well known until it entered the collections of the Louvre in 1923. The canvas shows an interior corner of the open trading floor of the Paris Stock Exchange (The

Paris Bourse Euronext Paris is France's securities market, formerly known as the Paris Bourse, which merged with the Amsterdam, Lisbon, and Brussels exchanges in September 2000 to form Euronext NV. As of 2022, the 795 companies listed had a combined market ...

). May stands in the center of the picture wearing a top hat and

pince-nez Pince-nez ( or , plural form same as singular; ) is a style of glasses, popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that are supported without earpieces, by pinching the bridge of the nose. The name comes from French ''pincer'', "to pinch ...

, listening to his colleague, a certain M. Bolâtre, leaning over his shoulder. They are likely discussing a document, possibly a bordereau, held aloft by a partially obscured third party. Although the owner and possible commissioner of the work was himself Jewish, art historian

Linda Nochlin Linda Nochlin (''née'' Weinberg; January 30, 1931 – October 29, 2017) was an American art historian, Lila Acheson Wallace Professor Emerita of Modern Art at New York University Institute of Fine Arts, and writer. As a prominent feminist art h ...

has interpreted the painting as an

anti-Semitic Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

depiction of Jews in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, due especially to the exaggerated features and postures of the subjects. British art historian

Richard Shone Richard Shone (born 1949) is a British art historian and art critic specializing in British modern art, and from 2003–15 was the editor of ''The Burlington Magazine''. Career At age 16, Shone was already well enough connected in the Briti ...

has written about the oil painting and its pastel study without mentioning anti-Semitism. In stark contrast to Nochlin, he describes the figures as having "humdrum features." May himself, according to Shone, is depicted as a "seasoned figure" whose "expression gives nothing away." Shone, Richard While anti-Semitism has a long history in France, there is little evidence of Degas holding this attitude until the time of the

Dreyfus affair The Dreyfus affair (french: affaire Dreyfus, ) was a political scandal that divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francop ...

two decades later. The technique of ''Portraits at the Stock Exchange'' can be more closely related to

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...

than many of Degas's earlier works. Evidence for this can be found in the painting's quickly applied, sketchy brushstrokes. The psychological perspective of the painting is one of detachment, a common viewpoint in Impressionist paintings. This painting is currently at the

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...

in Paris. A smaller, pastel sketch of the same subject can be found in the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

References

External links

*http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire/commentaire_id/portraits-a-la-bourse-15775.html?no_cache=1&cHash=e667db56f6 *http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/436154
''Degas: The Artist's Mind''
exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art fully available online as PDF, which contains material on ''Portraits at the Stock Exchange'' (see index) {{ACArt Paintings by Edgar Degas

Stock Exchange A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for th ...

Jews and Judaism in Paris 1879 paintings Antisemitism in France

Paintings in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay