The Bellelli Family

E60936

The Bellelli Family is a large, early realist portrait painting by Edgar Degas depicting his aunt’s family in a tense domestic interior, often seen as a psychological and compositional precursor to his later work.


Statements (45)
Predicate Object
instanceOf group portrait
oil painting
painting
artist Edgar Degas
basedOn Degas’s relatives in Florence
collection Musée d’Orsay collection
completionDate circa 1867
countryOfOrigin France
creator Edgar Degas
depicts Degas’s aunt Laura Bellelli
Gennaro Bellelli
Giovanna Bellelli
Giulia Bellelli
a bourgeois family interior
a framed portrait of the girls’ grandfather
a tense domestic atmosphere
bourgeois interior furnishings
psychological distance between family members
depictsSetting Florence
genre portrait painting
hasArtHistoricalSignificance important example of 19th‑century realist portraiture
key early masterpiece of Degas
hasArtisticStyle early realist style of Degas
naturalistic representation
hasColorPalette subdued tones
hasComposition figures arranged across a domestic interior
large horizontal format
hasDimension large scale
hasInterpretation often read as a study of family estrangement
seen as a precursor to Degas’s later compositional experiments
hasTheme domestic life
family tension
psychological realism
inception 1858
1867
influenced Degas’s later interior scenes
Degas’s later psychological portraits
languageOfTitle French
locatedIn Paris
location Musée d’Orsay
materialUsed oil paint
movement Realism
originalTitle La Famille Bellelli
period 19th century
support canvas

Referenced by (1)
Subject (surface form when different) Predicate
Edgar Degas
notableWork

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