Page "Edgar Degas" Paragraph 5

Upon his return to France in 1859, Degas moved into a Paris studio large enough to permit him to begin painting The Bellelli Family — an imposing canvas he intended for exhibition in the Salon, although it remained unfinished until 1867.

He also began work on several history paintings: Alexander and Bucephalus and The Daughter of Jephthah in 1859 – 60 ; Sémiramis Building Babylon in 1860 ; and Young Spartans around 1860.

In 1861, Degas visited his childhood friend Paul Valpinçon in Normandy, and made the earliest of his many studies of horses.

He exhibited at the Salon for the first time in 1865, when the jury accepted his painting Scene of War in the Middle Ages, which attracted little attention.

Although he exhibited annually in the Salon during the next five years, he submitted no more history paintings, and his Steeplechase — The Fallen Jockey ( Salon of 1866 ) signaled his growing commitment to contemporary subject matter.

The change in his art was influenced primarily by the example of Édouard Manet, whom Degas had met in 1864 ( while both were copying the same Velázquez portrait in the Louvre, according to a story that may be apocryphal ).