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by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on September 28, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Degas At The Cafe Des Ambassadeurs: Introduction
A singer in pale pink spreads her arms between green uprights. In front of her, three women fill much of the view, turning their faces and bodies toward the stage. Pale globes punctuate the darkness above and to the right. This is Edgar Degas's Mademoiselle Bécat at the Café des Ambassadeurs, 1997.88 in the Morgan Library & Museum. The Morgan dates the sheet 1877–1885 because Degas reworked an earlier lithograph with pastel; the coloured work is signed and dated 1885. [1] [6]
Degas made several works associated with Les Ambassadeurs, so the venue name alone does not identify this sheet. The Morgan's portrayal of Emélie Bécat has a pink-costumed singer, three foreground spectators and green columns. It differs from similarly titled works in Paris or Lyon. [1][2][3]
The work at a glance
- ArtistEdgar Degas (1834–1917)
- Owner titleMademoiselle Bécat at the Café des Ambassadeurs
- Working span1877–1885; pastel work signed and dated 1885
- Morgan mediumPastel over lithograph on paper mounted on paperboard
- Sheet size35 × 27.5 cm
- CollectionMorgan Library & Museum, New York, Thaw Collection, 1997.88
Contents
- Introduction
- At a Glance
- A performer seen through an audience
- A lithograph transformed with pastel
- Light, colour and stage presence
- Other Ambassadeurs works are separate objects
A performer seen through an audience
Bécat appears at the left side of the lit performance space. Her arms open almost horizontally, but her hands and splayed fingers make the gesture irregular and lively. The Morgan identifies that expressive pose with the comic performance style for which she was known. She is the named professional at the centre of the subject, yet Degas makes her small beside the spectators in the foreground. [1]
One of those women turns toward another; a companion looks toward the stage through opera glasses, according to the Morgan's account. Their heads and shoulders cut across the bottom and right of the picture. Degas makes the audience part of what we see, so our viewpoint seems to sit behind them. The singer is seen across a gap of heads and bodies rather than displayed as a full-length portrait in an empty frame. [1]
The green uprights help divide the scene. One vertical band separates Bécat from the darker central field, while another closes the view on the right. Above, a pale round gas globe and smaller lights hover against blue and black. The arrangement creates a sense of depth through overlap: nearby spectators, stage framing, then the singer and nocturnal setting. It also makes looking itself part of the subject. We watch people who are watching someone else. [1]
The café-concert was a social as well as a musical place. The Morgan describes Les Ambassadeurs as an outdoor pavilion near the trees of the Champs-Élysées, with tables arranged behind an orchestra facing a high stage. That helps explain the unusual mix of greenery, lights and a performer. It does not mean Degas recorded a single performance exactly as it happened. His drawing assembles an experience of the venue from a chosen, compressed viewpoint. [1]
A lithograph transformed with pastel
The Morgan says Degas began with an impression of his 1877/78 lithograph of a concert at the same venue. In 1885 he extended the sheet along the bottom and right edges and laid dense pastel over the print. He changed the composition significantly by adding the three female spectators in front. The result is a singular coloured sheet built from a printed base, not merely a differently coloured copy of every surviving lithograph impression. [1]
Lithography produces an image from a prepared stone or plate. The printed lines can give a repeatable starting design, while Degas's pastel marks alter each particular sheet. In this work, the spectators are especially important: their dark masses and near faces change the distance to the singer and make the view feel crowded. The print remains part of the object's material history even where pastel commands the eye. [1][4]
The Morgan calls the medium pastel over lithograph on paper mounted on paperboard. Michel Schulman's Degas catalogue lists the same Morgan accession and catalogue number MS1410, but describes it as pastel over monotype and gives 23 × 20 cm. Those fields differ from the Morgan's sheet measurement and process wording. The owner record gives the medium and measurements used here; the catalogue’s different terms and dimensions should not be treated as interchangeable facts. [1][4]
Degas signed and dated the pastel at lower right, “Degas / 85.” The date anchors the reworking but does not erase the earlier print's history. Calling the whole object simply an “1885 pastel” would hide how it was made. Calling it a “1877 lithograph” would hide the spectators, colour and additions that make this sheet distinct. [1]
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Watch on YouTubeLight, colour and stage presence
The picture balances a pink singer against cool green and blue. Bécat's dress catches the attention even though her figure is smaller than the heads in front. The dark spectators are not blank silhouettes: their faces and clothing carry ochre, turquoise and grey passages. Those colours pull some of the stage's light into the audience, linking the two zones. [1]
The Morgan points to several light sources in the composition: unseen footlights illuminate the singer, a chandelier sparkles above, a gas globe glows at the right, and moonlight and fireworks animate the night. They need not be taken as a precise lighting diagram. Their combined effect in the picture is a broken, theatrical brightness against a dark environment. Pastel can make a surface gleam in one region and recede into deep blue in the next. [1]
Bécat was associated with energetic comic poses, and the Morgan records her performances at Les Ambassadeurs from her 1875 debut to about 1885. The sheet does not identify a song or an exact evening. Her spread arms and fingers can be read as a moment of stage presence without inventing words she sang or a crowd reaction. [1]
Other Ambassadeurs works are separate objects
Orsay's RF 4041, Au café concert des Ambassadeurs, is also dated 1885, but its composition shows a different view and its record describes pastel over etching and monotype. Lyon's 1876–77 Café-Concert at Les Ambassadeurs places a red-dressed singer above shadowed musicians and was exhibited in 1877. Neither is the Morgan sheet discussed here. The venue supplies a recurring subject, not a single canvas or print that all these titles name. [2][3]
The related uncoloured Bécat lithograph has its own surviving impressions, including one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The site's prints and monotypes hub gives broader process context. Those impressions can clarify the printed starting point, but the Morgan 1997.88 adds pastel and foreground women. Its identity rests on the physical sheet, support, composition and accession, not on the shared singer or café name alone. [1][4][5]
Look first at Bécat's hands, then let the green uprights lead your eye toward the gas globe. Finally return to the three women whose heads fill the foreground. Their presence changes the image from a straightforward stage view into an account of spectatorship. Degas made a crowded night scene in which performer and audience create one another's visibility. [1]
Artworks directory
A selected index of documented works, combining owner records with entries sampled across Michel Schulman’s digital catalogue raisonné. It is not a complete catalogue. View the full catalogue
Discussion
Share what you notice in Degas’s at the cafe des ambassadeurs.
Reader Insights
How do the foreground spectators change the view of Bécat?
Where do the green uprights divide the scene?
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References
- Morgan Library & Museum, Mademoiselle Bécat at the Café des Ambassadeurs, 1997.88, owner object record, materials, sheet size, construction and interpretive notes. View source
- Musée d'Orsay, Au café concert des Ambassadeurs, RF 4041, distinct 1885 object. View source
- Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Café-Concert at Les Ambassadeurs, distinct 1876–77 pastel over monotype. View source
- Michel Schulman, Degas catalogue raisonné, Mlle Bécat aux Ambassadeurs, MS1410, corroborating accession and catalogue identity, with medium/size discrepancy. View source
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mademoiselle Bécat at the Café des Ambassadeurs, Paris, 19.29.3, separate lithographic impression. View source
- Edgar Degas, Mademoiselle Bécat at the Café des Ambassadeurs, 1877–1885; pastel signed 1885, pastel over lithograph on paper mounted on paperboard, per Morgan owner record. Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 1997.88. Collection record. View source
