Degas painted an unusually large number of Jewish subjects before he was poisoned by the anti-Semitic rhetoric espoused throughout Paris beginning in the 1870s (Nord, 59). He made several studies of the Jewish artist Emile Levy between 1865 and 1869. In the early 1870s Degas painted the father of another Jewish artist, Eduoard Brandon (Nochlin, 149). He even painted General Mellinet and Chief Rabbi Astruc (1871), a sentimental double portrait that portrays a prominent rabbi as the equal of a Parisian general (Baumann, 207). Degas’ anti-Semitic ideology began developing in the late 1870s, but despite his growing prejudice, he exchanged portraits with Jewish painter Henri Michel-Levy in 1879, the same year he painted Halévy in Portrait of Friends in the Wings (1879) (Pickvance, 68).
While his antipathy toward Jews became much stronger in later years, another of Degas’ 1879 works, At the Bourse (1879), is by far his most anti-Semitic painting. Also known as Portraits at the Stock Exchange, it depicts Jewish banker Ernest May 
conversing with M. Bolâtre on the steps of France’s stock exchange (Nochlin, 146). May’s features, a hooked nose, bulging eyes and pursed lips, are taken straight from the anti-Semitic cartoons that were popular at the time. Art historian Paula Hyman explained, “Indeed, throughout much of the nineteenth century the Jew was depicted in caricatures as the epitome of the capitalist speculator. The vulgar and exploitive Jewish banker/businessman - with his huge nose, thick, protruding lips … a mark of his alien status - appeared regularly in newspaper illustrations of the 1880s and 1890s” (Hyman, 91). May’s character is clearly based on the vulgar images that Hyman describes.
More disturbing than May’s countenance is the inappropriate closeness between the two central figures in the painting. May’s head is sharply titled toward Bolâtre, who appears to be whispering something in his ear. In much sharper detail than the rest of the painting, May’s ear is deliberately emphasized. The portrait’s unusually close perspective creates the impression that the observer is spying on the two men while they share a secret stock tip. With viewers left outside as a Jewish banker receives insider trading information, At the Bourse seems to be Degas’ illustration of the myth of a Jewish financial conspiracy (Nochlin, 146-148). Linda Nochlin elaborated on the idea of a conspiracy in her book The Politics of Vision, writing, “It is not too farfetched to think of the traditional gesture of Judas betraying Christ in this connection, except that here, both figures function to signify Judas; Christ, of course, is the French public, betrayed by Jewish financial machinations” (Nochlin, 148). Whether or not he intended to paint a biblical allegory, May and Bolatre are undoubtedly conspiratorial figures. More overtly than to be expected from an artist of his subtlety, Degas uses At the Bourse to articulate his developing anti-Semitic beliefs.
top right: Degas, Edgar. General Mellinet and Chief Rabbi Astruc. Private collection, Mairie de Gardardmer, France.
left and bottom right: Degas, Edgar. At the Bourse. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.