sun of steel

Combing the Hair ('La Coiffure')

Artist: Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)

Date: ca. 1896

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: The National Gallery, London, United Kingdom

Women combing their hair, or having it combed, often appear in Degas’s work – for example, in his early Beach Scene, also in the National Gallery. This late painting is one of his boldest treatments of the subject.

Here, a maid, wearing her servant’s uniform, combs the hair of her seated mistress, who is not yet fully dressed and who may also be pregnant. Pulled back by the force of the strokes, the mistress raises her right hand to her head as if in pain, or perhaps just to steady herself or hold her hair in place.