NORMA BROUDE An Early Friend of Degas tn Florence: A Newly-Identified Portrait Drawing of Degas by Giovanni Fattori ON 4th August r8s8, Edgar Degas arrived in Florence as the guest of his aunt and uncle Bellelli. 1 Int en ding at first to stop only briefly on his way home to Fr ance, he subse- quently decided to stay and await the return of his aunt Laura, who had been called before his arrival to the bedside of her ailing father in Napl es . Despite the frequent and insistent summonses issued by his own father over the next months, Degas, a usually dutiful son, repeatedly put off his departure for home, and did not in fact leave Florence until the end of March r8sg, some eight months after his arrival.2 The important role which this Florentine sojourn played in Degas's early deve lopment has long been recognized by students of Degas's art, and much has been written about the activities and circumstances which induced him to prolong his stay: his relationship with the memb ers of the Bell elli family and the evoluti on of his ambitious group portrait of th em; 3 his extensive activity as a copyist after works by Qu attrocento masters in the museums an d churches of Florence ; 4 and his friendship with Gustave Moreau, 5 the French painter with whom he had become acquainted in Rome and whose arrival in Florence, Degas pere correctly predicted in a let ter of 30th November, 'va te retenir encore, je le vois bien.' 6 Considerable attention has been p aid too to Degas's contacts in later years with Florentine artists and critics like Telemaco Signorini and Di ego Martelli, whose acquaintance he would first have made during this early stay in Florence. 7 But the actua l extent and significance of these initial contacts with local artists have been largely neglected, du e to the scantin ess of the documentation which has been ava ilable. Th e only firm evidence, in fact, which has been a dduc ed to support the contention that Degas mixed with his Floren- tine contemporaries has consisted of two brief passages in a book which was written by Tel emaco Signorini and pub- 1 Date known from a le tter in a private collection, Paris, dat ed 13th August 1858, to Edgar in Florence from his father Auguste De Gas in Paris. Cited by T. REFF: 'New Light on Degas's Copies', THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, CVI [1964] , p.251 and 11. 13; also, REFF: 'The Chronology of Degas's Notebooks', THE BU RLINGTON MAGAZINE, CV Jl ( 1965), p.6 1 I , " ·5 3· 2 For a ge neral account of these events, see P.-A. LEMOISNE: Degas et so11 4 vo ls., Paris [1 946 tr], I, pp.29 ff. ( Works herein catalogued will be cited below as L. with number. ) On 2nd April 1859, Degas was in Genoa, presumably on his way home to Pa ri s. Known from inscription in Bibliotheque Nationale, Dc.327d reserve, carnet 16, P·4' (hereaft er cit ed as B.N., carnet 16, etc .), cited in REFF [1g6s], p.612 and n .6 1. 3 ." ce J· s. BOGGS: 'Edgar Degas and the Bellellis', The Art Bulletin, XXXVII ( 1955), pp. I 2 7-36. 4 See T. REFF: ' Degas's Copies of Older Art', THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, CV [1963], pp.241- 5 1; also, REFF [1964], pp.250- 59. 5 SeeP. POOL: 'Degas and Moreau, THE DURLINGTON MAGAZINE, CV (1963), pp.2 5 1- 5 6. • LEMOISNE, I, p. 3 I. 7 See L. VITALI: 'Three Italian fri ends of Degas', THE Bl'RLINGTON MAGAZINE, cv [1 9 6 3 ], pp.266- n 726 lished in 1893, a book chronicling th e history of the renowned Gaffe Michelangiolo, popular meeting-place of artis ts and patriots in Florence during the 185o's and early '6o's. 'Nel r855,' wrote Signorini, 'feci anch'io la mia prima comparsa al Michelangiolo insieme con Odoardo Borrani, e vennero con noi . .. D egas e Morot [ sic ], T issot e Lafenestre . .. .' 8 And further on, ennumerating the artists from all over th e world who had once gathered at the Gaffe, Signorini lists again : 'Dalla Francia quattro giovani studenti oggi notissimi nel mondo dell'arte, il Degas, il Morot [sic], il Tissot e Lafenestre .. . .' 9 In addition, the artist Baccio Maria Bacci, a late student of th e Tuscan p ainter Giovanni Fattori, has referred upon several occasions in his writings on the Macchiaioli to a particular friendship between Fattori and Degas during the latt er's first trip to Florence, 10 and he has mentioned too the existence of a po rtrai t of Fattori , now lost, which Degas had pa int ed, presumably during that period. 11 Lacking further evidence, however, scholars have ignored th e possibility of a friendsh ip between Degas and Fattori, a possibility rendered im- possible, it might be supposed, by th e enormous differences in their backgrounds and personaliti es . The appearance, however, of new evidence, presented below, lends credibility at last to Bacci's report, and helps to shed some light on a personal aspect of Degas's early experience in Florence about which hitherto very little has been known. Among the more than 200 drawings by Giovanni Fattori in the Museo Givico at Leghorn, recently restored, cata- logued and exhibited under the auspices of the Soprinten- denza alle Gallerie di Roma II , is a portrait drawing in pencil of a dapper young man who stands, full-length, with his left han d in his trouser pocket and his right hand grasping the watch chain suspended from his vest, in a pose not unrelated to the conventions of contemporary photography (Fig.32) .12 Id entified in the catalogue of th e Rome exhibition simply as 'ritratto d'uomo in piedi,' this dr awing is unmistakably a portrait of the young Edgar D egas. Appearing on the verso side of a sheet of drawings which can be dated c. r 86o on 8 T. SIGNORINI: Caric aturisti e caricaturati al Gaffe A1iche langiolo, Florence [1893], p. 77 (Mode rn editi on with introduction aed notes by B. M. BACCI, Florence [1952], pp.I 19- 20.) • Ibid., pp.12 0-21. ( Modern edition, p.167.) 10 B. M. BACCI: L' Ottocento dei Macchiaioli e Die go Martelli, Florence [1 g6g] , pp .46, 106; also in SIGNOR IN!: Caricaturis ti (ed. BACCI (1952) , pp. I 19- 120, n. I). In a letter of 24th April 1972 to the a uthor, Bacci wr ites that Matilde Cioli Bartolommei, herself a writer, painter and very good friend of Martelli and Fattori , 'spesso mi ha detto dell'appre.u:amento del Degas per Fattori.' 11 In S IGNORINI: Caricaturisti (ed. BACCI (1952), pp.11g- 20, n.I ). Mention ed also by M. DE MICrmu: Giov anni Fattori , Busto Arsizio [Ig61], P·'9· In the le tter cited above, n.Io, Bacci writes: ' In quanto al ritratto del Fattori,fatto dal De gas, e 1111 argomento de l quale si parla da piu di se ttanta anni. Lo ha affermato che esisteva, Anna Franchi, una scrittrice legata ai Macchiai oli e arnica del Fattori.' 12 D. DURBE: Disegni di Giovanni Fat t ori del Mus eo Civico di Livomo, Ro me [ 1970], p.21: No.52 verso, matita su carla grigio verde, mm.246 by 188.