Renowned French painter Edgar Degas suffered of progressive light sensitivity and blurred central vision in both eyes, which affected his life and art in many ways. A first cousin from his mother's side, Estelle Musson of New Orleans also lost vision in a similar fashion at a comparable age. We postulated that Edgar and Estelle shared the same retinal pathology that possibly developed in a hereditary fashion, and we were interested whether any of their living family descendants might carry ABCA4 mutations to test the possibility that Edgar Degas may have had Stargardt disease.Edgar was never married and had no children, but Estelle had five children, four of whom from her marriage to Edgar's younger brother, and there are several descendants still living in New Orleans area. Genetic testing on five of Estelle's great grandchildren (Edgar's great grandnieces) were performed searching for ABCA4 mutations.We could not document any disease-causing variations in the ABCA4 gene in any of the descendants and therefore concluded that Edgar Degas most likely did not have Stargardt disease. Estelle and Edgar may have shared a different hereditary disease or have had two different retinal dystrophies or had another eye disease, including the unlikely possibility of inflammatory disease.
Keywords: ABCA4 gene; Edgar Degas; Musson family; Stargardt disease; macular degeneration.