This work depicts Henri Michel-Lévy (1844–1914), a painter linked to the Impressionist movement. On the right, a fête galante in Impressionist style evokes Le déjeuner sur l’herbe, by Édouard Manet; on the left is a painting entitled The Regattas.

The female figure featured on the canvas appears to have been painted after the motionless mannequin left lying on the ground. In both cases the figures have their backs to the painter. A possible metaphor for the ‘modern woman’ and her vulnerability, the mannequin could also be a way for Degas to emphasise the primacy of artifice over naturalistic observation. In the foreground there is also an open box of paints and the artist’s palette, – a reference to Manet’s ex libris –, almost like a coffin, where a small doll lies subtly.

The composition, difficult to interpret, seems to suggest an original reading of the truth and illusion theme, a reflection on art’s raison d’être or even the inevitability of death. The off-centre framing devised by Degas, a lucid and merciless observer of reality, adds an additional element of disquiet to the oppressive and lonely space of the scene, transporting the figure to a level of a ‘mental reality’.