Description
In Young Man, Seated, in a Velvet Beret, Degas reconsiders a portrait by Rembrandt through his own etched line. A broad beret frames the young sitter’s tilted head, and the lighter face contrasts with darker shoulders. The three-quarter pose offers a quiet, inward-looking encounter. Fine lines and uneven tones concentrate the image around the figure rather than disperse attention through a detailed setting.
Degas made this etching in 1857 after Rembrandt’s Young Man in a Velvet Cap. The Met describes it as a reinterpretation: the composition is reversed and surrounding details are removed. Degas’s interest in Rembrandt had begun with study of prints in Paris. Here that attention becomes an independent exercise in emphasis, with the treatment of ink lending a particular atmosphere to a design drawn from an older master.





Reviews
There are no reviews yet.