When Edgar Degas visited Albi in 1889, he left behind not only sketches and memories, but also a rare photographic portrait, captured by Michel Manzi, that has since become a touchstone for scholars tracing the artist’s late period. This image, now held at the Musée d'Orsay, is remarkable for its intimacy: Degas, usually wary of the camera, allowed Manzi—a fellow artist and early advocate of photographic processes—to record him in a moment of quiet reflection. The resulting portrait is one of the few that shows Degas in his later years, at a time when his eyesight was failing but his creative energy remained undimmed. The photograph presents Degas seated, his gaze averted, hands resting on his lap.

The subdued lighting draws attention to the contours of his face and the thoughtful set of his mouth, suggesting the introspection that marked his final decades. Unlike the formal, posed portraits typical of the era, Manzi’s lens captures something more candid and vulnerable. The absence of props or painterly flourishes—no palette, no dancers—places the focus squarely on the artist as a man, not a myth.

In contrast to painted self-portraits by contemporaries like Édouard Manet, who often staged themselves with bravado, this image offers a rare glimpse of Degas’s private self. The precise medium of the original work remains uncertain—possibly an albumen print or a carbon print, both favored by Manzi at the time. Since its creation, the portrait has resided in the collections of the Musée d'Orsay, where it stands as a testament to the intersection of photography and painting in late 19th-century France. For Degas, who experimented with photography himself, this portrait is both a personal memento and a record of artistic exchange.

Today, it is valued not only as a likeness of the artist but as a document of a moment when the boundaries between artistic media were being redrawn.