At the Stock Exchange, c.1878/79 Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

We create our paintings with museum quality and covering the highest academic standards. Once we get your order, it will be entirely hand-painted with oil on canvas. All the materials we use are the highest level, being totally artist graded painting materials and linen canvas.

We will add 1.6" (4 cm) additional blank canvas all over the painting for stretching.

High quality and detailing in every inch are time consuming. The reproduction of Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas also needs time to dry in order to be completely ready for shipping, as this is crucial to not be damaged during transportation.
Based on the size, level of detail and complexity we need 8-9 weeks to complete the process.

In case the delivery date needs to be extended in time, or we are overloaded with requests, there will be an email sent to you sharing the new timelines of production and delivery.

TOPofART wants to remind you to keep patient, in order to get you the highest quality, being our mission to fulfill your expectations.

We not stretch and frame our oil paintings due to several reasons:
Painting reproduction is a high quality expensive product, which we cannot risk to damage by sending it being stretched.
Also, there are postal restrictions, regarding the size of the shipment.
Additionally, due to the dimensions of the stretched canvas, the shipment price may exceed the price of the product itself.

You can stretch and frame your painting in your local frame-shop.

Once the painting At the Stock Exchange is ready and dry, it will be shipped to your delivery address. The canvas will be rolled-up in a secure postal tube.

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The paintings we create are only of museum quality. Our academy graduated artists will never allow a compromise in the quality and detail of the ordered painting. TOPofART do not work, and will never allow ourselves to work with low quality studios from the Far East. We are based in Europe, and quality is our highest priority.

At first glance, this scene might seem a mere glimpse of Parisian life: a huddle of gentlemen in top hats, gathered in what appears to be a cramped, bustling interior. In truth, the painting is a finely calibrated portrait, with the banker Ernest May at its center. The muted backdrop - a series of shadowed figures and indistinct walls - offers a stark contrast to May’s elongated, pallid face, drawing the viewer’s eye unerringly to his refined features. The surrounding onlookers, nearly faceless in their anonymity, reinforce the sense of social ritual at play, each man absorbed in the fevered calculations of finance.

The color palette is restrained, almost somber. Degas employs deep browns, muted greens, and smoky blacks that cloak the figures in a subdued atmosphere. Soft touches of flesh tones and subtle highlights glinting off the top hats introduce just enough light to break the monotony of shadow. This selective use of color underscores the focus on May’s visage - which emerges from the darkness like a solitary beacon - suggesting that the primary subject is the individual rather than the crowd.

Technique plays a quietly significant role here. Degas’s brushwork appears looser at the edges, dissolving the background figures into a swirl of tonal strokes. This purposeful vagueness fosters a sense of commotion, as though the viewer has intercepted a private moment in a busy corridor. Yet, despite this seeming haste, the central figure remains meticulously observed, from the subtle shading of May’s cheeks to the careful modeling of his beard. The canvas reads as both lively and carefully orchestrated, an interplay of spontaneity and deliberation.

Compositionally, the arrangement has an artful complexity that belies the painting’s initial appearance of chaos. The grouping of bowler-hatted and top-hatted men frames May in a sort of triangular convergence, ensuring that one’s gaze settles on him even as the setting hums with activity. This is reinforced by the way the other faces are minimized or cloaked in shadow - a tactic that further magnifies May’s importance. Degas’s own distance from this world of finance, heightened by his personal history, quietly resonates in the painting. He captures not only a portrait of an individual, but the subtle codes, customs, and anxieties of a particular social strata at a precise moment in time.