Portraits at the Stock Exchange

Portraits at the Stock Exchange by Edgar Degas, executed between 1878 and 1879, is a monumental drawing created using pastel on paper, meticulously pieced together and laid down on canvas. This complex layering highlights Degas’s experimental approach, pushing the boundaries of the drawing medium. The work captures a candid, almost snapshot-like moment within the busy Paris Bourse (Stock Exchange), a favored locale for chronicling scenes of contemporary Parisian life. The composition focuses exclusively on the men involved in the rapid transactions of finance, capturing their absorbed intensity, professional uniformity, and the isolation of individuals within a crowd.

Degas was deeply interested in the activities of the modern city, choosing to focus on immediate, observable environments rather than traditional mythological or historical subjects. In this work, the artist employs abrupt cropping and dramatic angles to convey the chaotic energy and movement of the exchange floor, a hallmark of his realist approach during the period. The soft, granular texture of the pastel lends an atmospheric quality to the scene while emphasizing the dark, formal attire of the financial brokers. Degas’s sharp observation of these professional subjects provides a unique window into the economic underpinnings of late 19th-century Parisian society. This key work is held within the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.