Jessica became interested in Degas' New Orleans adventures after discovering that Degas was in fact born to a Creole mother. She enjoys reading about this Frenchman's southern connection because of her growing fascination with French culture in New Orleans (which began in the Fall semester with French 101). She began to wonder, however, why it was that Degas was the only French Impressionist to travel to the United States... Thus, ica embarked on a voyage (within the context of her Writing Seminar class on Impressionism) to explore his mother's influence on Degas as the driving force behind his sojourn to New Orleans.
Jessica was born in Miami, Florida, but she spent most of her childhood in Israel before returning to the United States seven years ago. She graduated from Felix Varela High School in 2004. Having never lived in the Northeast, she enjoys the change in seasons but misses the warm beaches of Miami.
Jessica enjoys running, weightlifting, pastels and monkeying around; appropriately enough, her nickname is "Monita" (monkey in Spanish). She has no idea what she wants to do when she graduates Princeton, but she feels as though she has plenty of time to think of a satisfying occupation (that would allow her to monkey around).
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In Feigenbaum's book Degas in New Orleans, he titles the first chapter "Edgar Degas, Almost a Son of New Orleans" (Feigenbaum 3). While the very title suggests the interconnection between French-Creole Louisiana and France, Degas was the only French Impressionist to travel to the United States. More so than a guest, New Oleanders consider him to be part of their southern family.
In the spirit of preserving the legacy of the Impressionist painter in New Orleans, therefore, the Degas Foundation was founded in 1995. It seeks to educate the public about Degas in New Orleans, and indeed, their documentary Degas in New Orleans: A Creole Sojourn received the Gold Award at the Flagstaff International Film Festival. The Degas Foundation also restored the Degas House â€" in which Degas lived and worked in his five month sojourn to New Orleans â€" with help from the Louisiana Preservation Alliance, thus showcasing the importance of Degas' legacy not only to singular historic foundations but also to the city (and the state) as a whole. 
In his book on Degas, Bernd Growe suggests that Degas was especially drawn to Estelle Musson because of their common vision problem: she had lost all vision in her left eye by 1869 and her right eye was deteriorating rapidly, while Degas suffered from a mild dysentery condition. Even the author and essayist Christopher Benfey, who notes in his book Degas in New Orleans that Degas' mild eye problem was more an excuse to "paint what he felt like painting, and to stay â€" where he always preferred to stay â€" indoors" (Benfey 100), does not discard their common condition as a plausible catalyst for their close relationship, which was "already palpable" only a week after they met (Benfey 53). Indeed, Degas' constant references to his "poor Estelle…. blind as you know" (Kay 15), and such paintings as Femme Assis Pres d'un Balcon, suggest that Degas subconsciously saw his own impending blindness in Estelle's deteriorating condition. In the portrait, for instance, the outline of the railing fades into Estelle's eyes, which are somewhat smeared. Additionally, the railing, the floor and the balcony view are not clearly illustrated, but are rather composed of faded lines and solid colors: could Degas' ambiguity have been an effort to depict Estelle the way she would have seen herself, as if he were preparing for his own blindness?
In January of 1862, Estelle married Joseph Davis Balfour, the nephew of the Confederate President Jefferson Davis (Feigenbaum 279). As an officer in the Confederate army, Balfour was killed in the battle of Corinth in October of that year, leaving Estelle with child. The newly widowed Estelle then met Rene Degas, her cousin, while she was in exile in Paris. Against his father's wishes, Rene returned to New Orleans with the Mussons; they married in a against their parents' advice and without the blessings of the Catholic Church, which forbade cousins from marrying.
On May 1, 1862, nearing the second year of the Civil War, Commodore Farragut captured the city of New Orleans for the Union; General Benjamin Butler was subsequently given the charge of keeping order in the city. His policy was that of terror not only against the Confederate army but also against the people of New Orleans, and more specifically, the white women of New Orlenas. Provoked by lower class women who allegedly spat and in one instance emptied a chamber pot from a French Quarter balcony on Farragut's head (Benfey 51), General Butler passed Order Number 28, better known as the "Women Order," in which he projected:
The son of a Creole mother from New Orleans, Degas would have inevitably taken interest in news of General Butler's Women Order on that fateful May 15, 1862. And if he had not, the exile of his relatives â€" Estelle, Didi and Mme. Michel Musson â€" from the United States to France would have served as a stark reminder of the plight of women in New Orleans. Thus, the suffering of women became a thematic concern for Degas throughout the decade from 1863 to 1873 (Benfey 58). His perception of the melancholy position of women culminates in The Scene of a War from the Middle Ages (1863) at the time of his relative's arrival in Paris. In this painting, Degas' portrayal of beaten, naked women at the left and dressed men riding on horses at the right showcases the brutality shown against women. Although his anachronism - which is illustrated by his mixing armors from circa 1740 and bows too short for medieval times (Benfey 58) - appears to betray the idea that his is a depiction of the suffering of women during the Civil War, it actually contributes to the portrayal of Butler's war on women as primitive and savage. The Scene of a War from the Middle Ages, therefore, depicts a medieval battle fought in modern times against women. This battle lasted two years, from 1862 to 1864, when General Butler was finally removed from his post. Not coincidentally, the Musson women went back to their native town at the conclusion of the reign of "Butler the Beast."
In conclusion, Degas' portraits of Estelle â€" both in New Orleans and in Paris â€" contain characteristics that are quintessentially "Celestine," as evident through a study of his outlines. As noted by Duranty, a nineteenth century, Degas'
mother pervaded his depictions of Estelle. Degas' obsession with capturing his mother in Estelle was such that after returning to France from his sojourn to New Orleans he plastered the top and bottom of Portrait of Mme. René De Gas, sketching new portions to the painting but never finishing them. So haunted was he by the ghost of his mother that he attempted to add on to a portrait that so resembles her at her prime. He was unable to fill in the drawings, distracted, perhaps, but most likely because he did not have Estelle as a model and because no other model â€" not even his sister (who filled in on many different occasions) â€" would do. The completion of Estelle's portraits was a "difficult" (qtd. Mauclair 111) thing, indeed, he never completed the Portrait of Mme. René De Gas, mainly because the true model for his portraits of Estelle - his mother â€" was long dead.
Estelle finally returned to her native New Orleans in late 1865, accompanied by Degas' brother and soon-to-be husband Rene. Degas' mother, however, never did experience a return to the place of her birth; instead, she died in Paris. In his visit to New Orleans in 1872, therefore, Degas continues to portray Estelle in a morbid shadow that is reminiscent of his mother's persistent melancholy (instead of a lightness that would imply Estelle's homecoming). In his painting Mme. René De Gas, for instance, Estelle is newly married and also pregnant. Her features and even her dress, however, are so faintly outlined that her hands seem to blend in with the dress; all the while, her derrière is heavily shadowed and her hair and belt are more darkly outlined than the rest of her figure, thereby attracting attention to her pregnancy. The inconspicuousness of her hands gives the impression that she does not know what to do with them, while the shadow at her back suggests she is inclined and uncomfortable leaning back. Degas' outline, therefore, portrays her to be in anticipation during what is supposed to be a moment of repose. In doing so, Degas essentially describes pregnancy as a state of uneasiness, which makes sense; he witnessed his mother bear seven children, three of whom did not survive. In Degas' mind, therefore, Estelle's pregnancy is stained with the misfortunes of his mother's life.
the background of the balcony is nonexistent; later, Degas defined it by lines that begin and do not seem to end, but rather fade, creating the outline of what could potentially be "ornate cast-iron veranda typical of houses in the nineteenth century" (Feigenbaum 203) that provided "intimate, half-private spaces… particularly prized in New Orleans" (Benfey 93). Seeing as the Musson family lost most of their fortune and power during Reconstruction because of their Confederate ties, this painting might be reminiscent of Estelle's lost financial stability; by recreating the image of a secure and financially stable environment (represented by the balcony), could Degas have been commenting on Estelle's desire to return to a life of wealth? This is significant because it would signify that Estelle was overcome with nostalgia for lavish and "superb palais" in New Orleans, similar to Degas' mother's retreat to her relatives' mansion in Italy. Indeed, his recollection of his travels with his mother pervade in his consideration of Estelle's present condition.
In his last Portrait of Mme. René De Gas, née Estelle Musson, painted in New Orleans in 1872-73, Degas attempts to capture Estelle as contentedly domestic, "the excellent wife" (qtd. Feigenbaum 210), but he instead creates an ominous portrait of the pregnant Estelle; in so doing, he demonstrates the intensity of his mother's memory on his perception of Estelle. In the painting, Estelle is attentively engaged in arranging flowers in a tall vase the way an "excellent" wife should, and her flattering black dress contrasts against a white camellia to direct our eyes gently towards her pregnant womb. His vision of Estelle, however, is tainted with both the red, comb-like appendages of the (funeral) arrangement that blend with her forearm and the sharp green leaves that caress her back, as if luring her towards the table. Although some critics suggest that the contact between the figure and the flowers reveals "a heightened sense of touch" that is foreshadowing her impending blindness (Groat), the imposing arrangement suggests she is lured to death. Degas' portrait of his cousin therefore depicts her in a "Janis-face" manner: while her outline is swollen with life, her figure is lured to death. Instead of looking forward at Estelle's future blindness, Degas is actually looking backwards at his mother's doom. Although "Degas' most affectionate portraits were of Estelle" (May 55), Degas' "affectionate" portraits, like Portrait of Mme. René De Gas, include hints of suffering embedded in the lines of the happiest of scenes.
In 1865, then, when Estelle fled to Paris with her mother and sister to escape the oppressive rules of Civil War General Benjamin Butler, Degas unconsciously found in her a way to communicate his loss; as an exile, she became a medium through which to outline the thick sense of displacement that had pervaded his own mother in Paris. Why else would Degas, who had a reputation for being very "brusque" even with family members (Benfey 53), display such sheer sympathy for a cousin who was a stranger to him â€" indeed he had only met her a few weeks earlier? If we consider Degas' watercolor Mme. Michel Musson and Her Daughters (1865), we see that Estelle's sadness is depicted through the darkness of her outline in comparison with the figures in the rest of the painting: the exaggerated contour of her dress hide any trace of a chair or stool, and according to Benfey, "it seems as though she had sunk to the floor" (Benfey 51). His painting the image of an emotionally weak Estelle who needed to be cradled by her mother and sister, then, was also motivated by the memory of his mother, whose similar needs were tended by her relatives in her frequent trips to Naples. For Degas, the figure represented not only his cousin, the "sunken," drowning widow to whom he must tend, but also his mother, a young woman drifting away from her Parisian environment (and from Auguste, her French husband).
Indeed, the "sunken," gloomy imagery Degas associated with Estelle is even more pronounced in Young Woman in an Armchair (1865) in which Degas' long, black pencil markings resemble the fluidity of tears. This portrait is perhaps his most strikingly melancholy image of Estelle, whose "sorrows were so deep that the gaiety was hardly exposed" (Feigenbaum 139); although her "sorrow" is often attributed to the loss of her husband, Degas' emphasis of certain physical features that liken Estelle to his mother overwhelmingly suggest that Estelle's "sorrow" is actually shared by the two women. Their physical semblance is illustrated by a photograph of an 1860 drawing of Estelle and a small portrait of Degas' mother titled Celestine De Gas (1832-34); indeed, both satisfy Loyrette's description of Degas' mother as "a pretty young girl with a perfectly round face" (Loyrette 10). Degas therefore accentuated their similarities: he emphasized the roundness of Estelle's face by comparing the oval outline of the pillow with her round cheeks. Degas also smoothed sharp pencil lines in Estelle's facial region with softer pastels, making her cheeks swollen and glossy, as if she had been crying. This further relates the two women since his mother suffered as did Estelle upon her arrival in France from her native New Orleans; she would have known just as many tears.
Degas' works, moreover, became further defined by darker outlines that more clearly separated Estelle from her background, indicating his growing fascination with her sense of isolation. This is reminiscent of the ultimate futility of any of his mother's efforts to feel at home in Paris: like his mother, Estelle is a stranger. In his Portrait of Estelle Musson (1865), for instance, Estelle's eyes are heavily outlined with dark lines, which stand out against her pale face. This emphasis gives Estelle a sickly appearance that accompanies her unhealthy stay in Paris. Her figure, furthermore, seems more three-dimensional than the barren trees - the thin dark lines - in the background. She is out of place in the painting, yearning to come out of her exile in Paris but forced to stay, trapped by the thorns that seem to confine her by invading the outline of her head. Estelle could not avoid her impending sorrow in Paris, nor could Degas' mother escape her premature death.