The Bellelli Family

In 1856 Degas left his home in Paris to study art and visit family relations in Italy, arriving in Naples on 17 July. In 1857 he traveled between Naples, where he stayed with his grandfather, Hilaire Degas, and Rome. At the end of July 1858 Laura Bellelli wrote to Degas from Naples, inviting him to stay with her in Florence; it was there that Gennaro Bellelli, who had been a political journalist supporting the fight for Italy's independence, took refuge from Austrian persecution after defeat of the Revolution of 1848. Degas arrived in Florence by 4 August, living with his uncle Gennaro and making studies in the Uffizi. By September he had become bored, did not get along well with Gennaro, and remained only to see Laura, Giovanna, and Giulia, who had prolonged their stay in Naples following the death of Degas' grandfather Hilaire on 31 August. Laura subsequently confided to Degas that, living in exile, she missed her Neapolitan family, and further, that her husband was "immensely disagreeable and dishonest... Living with Gennaro, whose detestable nature you know and who has no serious occupation, shall soon lead me to the grave." These conflicts would provide both background and content for the painting. ==Process==

After his aunt and cousins returned in early November 1858, Degas undertook a series of works that would eventually culminate in The Bellelli Family. He painted his cousins in their black dresses and white pinafores, while his father wrote letters from Paris, offering advice on how best to proceed with the project, and impatiently awaited his return. and an oil sketch placed him standing behind his daughters; In late March 1859, Degas left Florence to return to Paris. Other than the conclusion that Degas worked on the picture "for several years", there is no documentation to confirm the actual time or place at which the picture was painted; a likely scenario is that Degas brought to France numerous sketches and studies and painted the picture in a studio procured for this purpose in Paris. There is a family account, once accepted but more recently deemed unlikely, that offers a different version: a Neapolitan lawyer who married one of Degas' grandnieces claimed that the painting was completed in Italy, and brought back to France only some forty to fifty years later, but this is contradicted by evidence that the painting was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1867. ==Composition and content==

The work of many artists provided inspiration: at this time Degas included in his correspondence mention of Anthony van Dyck, Giorgione, and Botticelli, among others. the portrait studies of Ingres, Velázquez's Las Meninas, the portraits of Hans Holbein, the Family of Charles IV by Francisco Goya, Gustave Courbet's After Dinner at Ornans, and a lithograph by Honoré Daumier entitled A Man of Property. As in Las Meninas, a picture, mirror, and doorway are used to expand the space of the interior. Any and all historical models were synthesized into a composition that was "unique in the painter's oeuvre and unique among the works of his contemporaries." . Diego Velázquez, 1656. Oil on canvas. Las Meninas'' may have inspired Degas to extend the space of the apartment by employing some of the same elements: here, too, a picture, a doorway, and a reflected image are prominent. Viewed alongside the work of Degas' contemporaries, the painting's uniqueness was due in large part to the composition, which presents a family portrait painted on the grand scale of a historical drama, Laura Bellelli stands as if for an official portrait, her expression indicative of her unhappiness, one hand resting protectively on Giovanna's shoulder, the other balancing her pregnant body; Telling, also, is the physical distance between them, as well as the difference in their postures. The family dog glimpsed at the lower right corner is, according to Arthur Danto, sensibly "sneaking out of the picture before all hell breaks loose". One is reminded of Laura Bellelli's note to Degas after he had returned to Paris: "You must be very happy to be with your family again, instead of being in the presence of a sad face like mine and a disagreeable one like my husband's." , 1868-1869. As in The Bellelli Family, Degas used physical distance to express emotional disconnection between a male and female figure. The drawing hung on the wall behind them is a portrait of the recently deceased Hilaire Degas, and was presumably a study for the portraits Degas made of his grandfather, drawn in the style of the Clouets. By placing it directly behind his aunt's head, Degas was connecting the generations of his family, and following a convention of portraiture used since the Renaissance, that of including ancestral effigies. By its very placement Degas was implicitly affirming his own presence and identifying with Laura, with whom, as their correspondence attests, he was unusually close. The unease of The Bellelli Family was not an anomaly, nor were such tensions revealed solely through the study of portraiture; in fact, alienation between the sexes was a recurring condition in Degas' work of the 1860s. Sulking and Interior Scene (The Rape) are both works of ambiguous content set in contemporary Paris, and The Young Spartan Girls Provoking the Boys and The Misfortunes of the City of Orleans occur in the ancient and medieval eras, yet in each "the element of hostility between the sexes is apparent", and in the latter the hostility has turned deadly. The Bellelli Family is notable for introducing psychological conflict in a painting that documents his own family. Given his usual discretion, it is reasonable to assume that such expressions were the product of Degas' unconscious mind. ==Exhibition history and provenance==

The painting was almost certainly conceived as an exhibition piece, for it is doubtful that Degas would have painted something so ambitious in scale for purely private satisfaction. The Bellelli Family remained with Degas until his last move in 1913, at which time he left it with his dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel. The painting was not seen again publicly until after Degas's death, when it was put up for sale in 1918 as part of the painter's estate. Its unexpected appearance created a sensation, and The Bellelli Family was immediately purchased by the Musée du Luxembourg for 400,000 francs. In 1947 the painting was exhibited in the Musée d'Impressionisme (Jeu-de-Paumes), and subsequently moved to the Musée d'Orsay. ==Condition==

At the time of its sale in 1918, the painting was in poor condition. In addition to the black streaks and crackling, it had tears and was dust-covered, and may have been kept by Degas for many years rolled-up in the corner of his successive studios. At some point, possibly in the 1890s, Degas restored the painting, sewing up tears, applying gesso to them, repainting Laura Bellelli's face, and retouching those of his uncle and cousins. However, prior to the painting's sale a restorer apparently misinterpreted these repairs and scraped them off, re-injuring the portraits of Gennaro and Giulia. The painting was subsequently restored in the 1980s. ==Assessment==

When exhibited at the sale of Degas' atelier in 1918, the picture elicited some confusion from critics; one called it "as dull as a Flemish interior, although the dry technique is distinctive." ==References==