When Combing the Hair appeared in 1896, it sparked immediate debate among critics for its daring treatment of an everyday, intimate scene. The painting is one of several versions by Edgar Degas exploring the theme of women at their toilette—a subject he returned to obsessively in his later years. Unlike his earlier ballet dancers, these late works were never intended for public commission or display; they were painted for himself, in the privacy of his studio.

The art dealer Ambroise Vollard, who acquired several of these works, called them “the most modern things ever painted.” The moment Degas captures is a simple but charged ritual: a woman sits, her back bare, while another—perhaps a maid or companion—pulls a comb through her long, coppery hair. The tension is visible in the sweep of the arms and the taut line of the neck, the sitter’s head tilted forward in resignation or discomfort. The harsh, raking light emphasizes the curves of the body and the fiery color of the hair, turning a daily act into a scene of drama and vulnerability.

Unlike Renoir’s soft, idyllic bathers, Degas offers no idealization; instead, he confronts the viewer with the physicality and awkwardness of the moment. The exact medium of this version remains uncertain—Degas experimented with oil, pastel, and even mixed media on cardboard in these late works, often layering and reworking surfaces until they nearly dissolved. Today, Combing the Hair is recognized as a landmark of Degas’s late style, where boundaries between drawing and painting blur. It passed through the hands of Parisian dealers before entering a major public collection, where it stands as a testament to Degas’s restless innovation in his final years.

This painting, like many from his last decade, shows an artist pushing technique and subject matter to their limits, long after Impressionism’s heyday.