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Edgar Degas - Twenty-four paintings from 1855 to 1859

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Degas began to paint early in life. By the time he graduated from the Lycée in 1853, at age 18, with a baccalauréat in literature, he had turned a room in his home into an artist's studio. Upon graduating, he registered as a copyist in the Louvre Museum, but his father expected him to go to law school. Degas duly enrolled at the Faculty of Law of the University of Paris, in November 1853, but applied little effort to his studies. In 1855, Degas met Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, whom he revered, and whose advice he never forgot: "Draw lines, young man, and still more lines, both from life and from memory, and you will become a good artist." In April of that year, Degas was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts. He studied drawing there with Louis Lamothe, under whose guidance he flourished, following the style of Ingres. In July 1856, Degas traveled to Italy, where he would remain for the next three years. In 1858, while staying with his aunt's family in Naples, he made the first studies for his early masterpiece The Bellelli Family. He also drew and painted numerous copies of works by Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and other Renaissance artists, but—contrary to conventional practice—he usually selected from an altarpiece a detail that had caught his attention—a secondary figure, or a head which he treated as a portrait.

Portrait of Rene De Gas 1855	Portrait of Rene De Gas 1855	Self Portrait 1855	Study for the Self Portrait 1855	Study of Gentile Bellini 1855
Self-Portrait 1855	Portrait de Giovanna Bellelli 1856	Degas in a Green Jacket 1856	Head of a Young Roman Girl 1856	Portrait of an Italian 1856
A Roman Beggar Woman 1857	Achille de Gas as a Naval Cadet 1857	Portrait of Rene-Hillaire De Gas 1857	Woman on a Terrace. Young Woman and Ibis 1857	Self-Portrait with White Collar 1857

Self-portrait 1857	Self-Portrait 1857	Self-Portrait 1857	The Old Italian Woman 1857	Hilaire de Gas , Grandfather of the Artist 1857
Dante and Virgil at the Entrance to Hell 1858	Self Portrait in a Soft Hat 1858		Portrait of a Young Woman, after Bacchiacca 1859	Portrait of Giulia Bellelli 1859