Portrait de Diego Martelli

Portrait de Diego Martelli, painted in 1879 and now at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, is one of Degas's most memorable portraits of the 1870s — depicting the Italian critic and champion of the Macchiaioli movement who had become an important figure in the Parisian avant-garde. Martelli is shown seated and completely at ease, his rotund body occupying a large proportion of the canvas, surrounded by papers and the accoutrements of his intellectual life. Degas had also painted him in a second portrait (now in Edinburgh), and the two works together represent his most sustained engagement with a single intellectual subject. The Buenos Aires version is notable for its bold compositional simplicity and psychological warmth.

The seated figure is rendered with Degas's characteristic compositional boldness: Martelli is placed low in the frame, papers spread before him, his stocky body and expressive face captured with direct, unflattering honesty. The high viewpoint creates a slightly unusual perspective on the seated figure. His handling of the papers and surrounding materials gives the portrait its specific contextual detail. The palette is warm and domestic, with Martelli rendered as a specific individual rather than a social type.