Artwork
The Bellelli Sisters (Giovanna and Giuliana Bellelli)
The Bellelli Sisters (Giovanna and Giuliana Bellelli) is an oil painting by the Realist artist Edgar Degas. It dates from 1865 and is held in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
About this work
Overview
Edgar Degas painted The Bellelli Sisters in 1865, an oil work now part of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s collection. The canvas presents two young women, sisters Giovanna and Giuliana Bellelli, standing side by side and looking toward the right, their figures rendered with a restrained palette and careful modeling.
Subject & Meaning
The portrait captures the sisters in a moment of quiet introspection. Both wear modest dresses with white collars and black chokers, their hair pulled back, suggesting a domestic setting and a shared familial bond. Their poised stance and subdued expressions convey a sense of contemplation rather than narrative drama.
Technique & Style
Degas employs chiaroscuro to model the figures against a striped wall, creating depth through contrasts of light and shadow. The background’s vertical bands and a simple wooden chair provide a minimal context, allowing the subtle tonal variations in the sisters’ clothing and skin to dominate the visual field.
History & Provenance
Completed in the mid‑1860s, the painting entered the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s holdings in the twentieth century, where it remains on display. Its provenance traces back to the Bellelli family, who commissioned Degas during his early career.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas on 19 July 1834 in Paris, Edgar Degas came from an affluent banking family with aristocratic roots and spent his childhood among the cultivated circles of the French capital.
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