From Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton:
This masterful, early portrait by Degas depicts the artist’s younger brother, René de Gas. The artist borrows from formal Mannerist portrait types by artists such as Agnolo Bronzino for this portrait of a young schoolboy, who is shown with pen and paper. As Degas continued to do throughout his career, he reused a canvas for this portrait; the original painting underneath appears in vertical strips on the right and left margins of the dark background.