The Bellelli Sisters (Giovanna and Giuliana Bellelli)

The Bellelli Sisters (Giovanna and Giuliana Bellelli), painted around 1865-66 and now at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, depicts the two daughters of Degas's Aunt Laura whom he had previously immortalized in the great Bellelli Family group portrait. This double portrait, painted several years after the monumental work, shows the girls as older and more fully individualized — Giovanna and Giulia now adolescents rather than children. Degas knew them well from his Italian sojourn and brought to this portrait the same psychological acuity that made the earlier group portrait so compelling. The work demonstrates his ability to render the specific character of individual sitters rather than types.

The two sisters are arranged in a natural, slightly informal pose — side by side but with different orientations and expressions — that captures the distinct personalities Degas observed in them. His handling combines careful facial observation with more broadly painted dress and background. The palette is warm and domestic, appropriate to an intimate family portrait. The composition is simpler and less architecturally structured than the monumental Bellelli Family, its intimacy a product of reduced scale.