From tired seamstress to milliner, into the fashion house of Paquin, and onto the streets alongside the affluent of Paris at the turn of the century.
Degas
Originally the toilet, this is where ladies prepared themselves for the day. Paintings from Hogarth. Degas, Vallotton, Pierre Bonnard and others.
At the ballet with Degas,Sargent’s Spanish dancer, entertainment in North Africa, an Ionian dance, the Can-Can, Salome and the Dance of the Seven Veils.
A cheap substitute for tapestries, they came of age in the 19th century when paper could be made in long rolls and colour printing had improved.
Laundresses who collect clothes and linen from homes, launder and press them, and return them for a pittance. Seamstresses working long hours with an uncertain future.
Fashionable hats and milliners by Georges Clairin, Edgar Degas, Jean Béraud, Pierre-Georges Jeanniot and Henri Gervex.
The evils of absinthe in paintings by Degas, Raffaëlli, Jean Béraud, and other booze like Bocks by Manet and Friant, with artists also drinking heavily.
Stairs to fall down, to sit in disgrace, or pose with your sibling? Stairs winding up and defying gravity, bearing ballet dancers, or in a Gothic prison.
Paintings by Edgar Degas, John Brett, Alfred Hunt, Giuseppe De Nittis, Marià Fortuny, Renoir, Joseph Stella, and others.
One of the most private areas in a house or apartment, shown here by Degas, Maximilien Luce, Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, Eric Ravilious and others.
