The Millinery Shop

With its unusual cropping and tilted perspective, this painting seems to depict an unedited glimpse of the interior of a small, 19th-century millinery shop, a quick view one might have while window shopping. The young shop girl leans back to examine her creation, her mouth pursed around a pin and her hands gloved to protect the delicate fabric of the hat. Totally absorbed, she seems absolutely unaware of the viewer. Edgar Degas scraped and repainted both the milliner's hands and her hat-in-progress so that both appear to be moving - an intended contrast with the finished hats on display to her left. X-ray examination revealed that this figure originally represented a customer, but in his rethinking of the subject, Degas withheld the information necessary to determine her identity.