Tags: Artwork.
A Cotton Office in New Orleans is an 1873 oil painting by Edgar Degas. In it Degas depicts the moment when his uncle Michel Musson’s cotton brokerage business went bankrupt in an economic crash according to Michael McMahon of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The firm was swamped by the postwar growth of the much larger Cotton Exchange. In the painting Musson is seen examining raw cotton for its quality while Degas’ brother Rene reads The Daily Picayune. It carried the bankruptcy news.
