From The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA:
Degas experimented with radical compositions in a number of portraits during the 1860s and 1870s. The figure in this painting is shown seated at a desk with his body turned away from us, absorbed in his own thoughts. The painting was neither signed nor exhibited during the artist’s lifetime, perhaps because he considered it unfinished. Though the sitter has never been identified, he was probably a friend or acquaintance as Degas rarely accepted commissions.
- See more at: http://www.clarkart.edu/Collection/6787#sthash.nHLepVxF.dpuf