Two Men

Inscription: Stamped (lower right): Degas

the artist, Paris (until d. 1917; his 2nd estate sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, December 11–13, 1918, no. 15, as "Deux hommes debout, en veston et pantalon rayé," for Fr 2750 to Vollard); [Ambroise Vollard, Paris, 1918–d. 1939]; Yvonne Lamon (until 1992)

P[aul]. A[ndré]. Lemoisne. Degas et son œuvre. [reprint 1984]. Paris, [1946–49], vol. 2, pp. 68–69, no. 135, ill., calls it "Emile Lévy (Deux hommes debout, en veston et pantalon rayé)" and dates it about 1865–69; identifies Lévy as a painter and friend from Degas's youth, citing a photograph of him in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

Jean Sutherland Boggs. Portraits by Degas. Berkeley, 1962, pp. 23, 91 n. 8, p. 121.

Gary Tinterow in "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 1992–1993." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 51 (Fall 1993), p. 55, ill. (color), observes that the informal setting may be an artist's studio; notes that Degas's friendship with Lévy lasted from the late 1850s through the 1860s, and that the man on the left remains unidentified.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 450, ill.

Richard Kendall. Letter to Gary Tinterow. December 5, 1996, sees a resemblance between the picture in the background and Degas's own "Heads of Two Men" (L59), which may have been hanging in his studio when he painted this work.

Theodore Reff, ed. The Letters of Edgar Degas.. By Edgar Degas. New York, 2020, vol. 1, p. 120 n. 24, identifies Emile Lévy as portrayed in The Met's picture.

The man on the right may be Émile Lévy (1826–1890), a painter and friend of Degas.