Degas painted his aunt Laura, her husband Baron Gennaro Bellelli and their daughters Giovanna and Giulia after staying with them in Florence, where the baron lived in political exile. Laura stands in mourning black beside her girls, while her husband sits apart at his desk, half turned away. The young painter made an unhappy marriage the real subject of a family portrait.
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Behind Laura hangs a framed portrait of her father, Hilaire Degas, the painter's grandfather, whose recent death explains the black dresses.
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