The Milliners
Edgar Degas·1882
Historical Context
The Milliners, a late work probably executed in the 1880s, shows two women at work in a hat shop — one adjusting a creation on a stand, the other working in the background. Degas returned repeatedly to the millinery shop as a subject, fascinated by the juxtaposition of decorative feminine objects (the hats, their ribbons and feathers) with the concentrated physical labour of the women who made them. The work belongs to his exploration of Parisian female professions alongside laundresses, café singers, and ballet dancers.
Technical Analysis
Degas positions the viewer above and to the side of the hat-making operations, the asymmetric viewpoint consistent with his mature compositional strategies. The hats on their stands create abstract shapes of vivid colour — orange, lilac, crimson — that compete visually with the more muted tones of the workers themselves.
