Woman Combing Her Hair

Edgar Degas devoted much of his later career to a celebrated series of intimate pastels depicting women bathing, drying themselves, and grooming — private moments observed with an unflinching, almost voyeuristic clarity. Woman Combing Her Hair, executed around 1888–90, belongs to this landmark body of work. Here, a woman is absorbed in the quiet ritual of tending to her hair, her body rendered in fluid, energetic strokes of pastel that convey both physical weight and graceful movement.

Degas applied pastel with exceptional mastery, layering and hatching pigment to achieve luminous color and rich texture — qualities that translate with remarkable presence onto canvas. The intimate, cropped composition and the model's averted gaze invite the viewer into a fleeting, unguarded moment, transforming an everyday act into a meditation on the female form and modern life. The warm, atmospheric tones — shaped in part by the discoloration of the original light green paper support — lend the work a timeless, golden sensibility.

Held in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, this work stands as a cornerstone of Impressionist draftsmanship. This stretched canvas reproduction is printed on premium matte canvas and hand-wrapped around a solid 0.75" gallery wrap frame, delivering museum-quality presence for any interior.