One of Edgar Degas's New Orleans works,…

One of Edgar Degas's New Orleans works, A Cotton Office in New Orleans, had garnered favorable attention back in France, and will be his only work purchased by a museum (that of Pau, France) during his lifetime.

At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Degas had enlisted in the National Guard, where his defense of Paris had left him little time for painting.

During rifle training, his eyesight was found to be defective, and for the rest of his life his eye problems will be a constant worry to him.

After the war, in 1872, Degas had begun an extended stay in New Orleans, Louisiana, where his brother René and a number of other relatives live.

Staying at the home of his Creole uncle, Michel Musson, on Esplanade Avenue, Degas had produced a number of works, many depicting family members.

Degas was to return to Europe in January 1873, but when his return trip was delayed, he was asked by his relatives to paint their portraits, and decided to show them as a group, at work in the family office.

Degas has crafted his work with the intent of selling it to a British textile manufacturer, but a drop in stock prices worldwide and declines in the cotton and art markets had ended his hopes for that specific sale.

Degas will next exhibit A Cotton Office in New Orleans in the second Impressionist show in Paris in 1876, and will finally sell the painting in 1878 to the newly founded Musee des Beaux-Arts in Pau.