Portrait of Mlle. Hortense Valpincon is a depiction of the only daughter of Edgar Degas’ childhood friend Paul, at whose country estate this was painted around 1876.
Dressed in white and a light-colored hat, Mlle. Hortense Valpincon is set apart from both the darks and the bright variation of warm colors of this domestic interior. This interior is highly decorated and the artist uses all his Impressionistic means to exploit and heighten this effect.
Hortense’s face is delicately and carefully painted to capture a realistic likeness, while to her right the painting becomes sketchy which suggests the unfinished state of the work but also may relate to the informal nature of the scene.
Edgar Degas’s Portrait of Mlle. Hortense Valpincon can be found in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in Minnesota.