ArtSmarts
Degas the Collector: obsessive unmercenary
France was convulsed with the war. Therefore, national museums received very little money to try to buy the enviable masterpieces from the private collection of Edgar Degas into the museum exposition. When the artist died in 1917, they had to organize three auctions to sell more than 2,000 collected paintings, drawings and watercolors. Nevertheless, people visited the sales even in the midst of…