Ludovic Lepic Holding His Dog

Ludovic Lepic Holding His Dog by Edgar Degas, dated 1889, is an emotionally resonant portrait that showcases the artist’s exceptional late-career mastery of pastel. Classified as a drawing, this piece captures Ludovic Lepic, the son of the Count Lepic, an acquaintance and frequent subject of the artist, holding a small dog in a moment of quiet domesticity. Produced in France during a critical period of artistic reevaluation, this work demonstrates Degas's technical shift toward highly saturated color and expressive, textural mark-making, favoring the immediacy and vibrancy afforded by pastel over traditional oil paint.

Degas expertly handled the dry medium, building up dense, layered applications of chalk to achieve rich coloration and define form. This technique allows for a powerful contrast between the subject’s soft features and the looser, more generalized background, emphasizing the immediacy of the encounter. Even while exploring the spontaneous effects of light and color, Degas maintained the structural rigor for which he was renowned, creating a composition that feels both intimate and classically balanced.

This striking portrait serves as a strong reminder of the breadth of Degas’s output beyond his famous scenes of ballet dancers and laundresses. As an important example of his mature style, Ludovic Lepic Holding His Dog offers critical insight into the artist’s technical evolution during the 1880s. The work resides within the esteemed collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and its historical significance means that high-resolution images and fine art prints of this French masterwork are often made available through public domain initiatives globally.