Mary Cassatt hated this portrait so much, she kept it hanging in her studio for thirty years.

Wait, what? Well, it’s true that Mary Cassatt despised this portrait of her. Why she kept it for so long probably has something to do with the fact it was painted by her longtime buddy Edgar Degas.

Few artists have been paired together more than Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt. The discussion about whether or not they had a romantic affair still continues today like celebrity gossip for art historians. Cassatt’s hatred for this portrait stemmed from rumors about her and Degas that became too much to handle when she was in her 70s and still unmarried.

Six years before Degas painted her, Cassatt completed a self-portrait in which she looks incredibly elegant, not to mention much younger. Degas’s portrait is more realistic and a bit unflattering. For one, she looks her age (40), and she’s also sitting quite informally, hunched over in a way that definitely can’t be good for her posture. The cards she’s holding, while possibly just photographs, together with her posture suggest she’s a fortune teller or a casino croupier, both lower-class occupations. It’s not exactly ugly but it’s certainly not the most attractive portrait either.

When Cassatt wrote to her dealer (also Degas’ dealer—besties share everything, right?) about the portrait in 1912, she claimed Degas made her look “repugnant.” She was embarrassed to even be identified as the woman in the painting and wanted absolutely no association with it. She insisted the portrait be sold outside outside of France and America, so the painting traveled around the world before finally ending up in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Sorry, Mary!

After selling the portrait Cassatt destroyed all letters between her and Degas, making it impossible for anyone to determine if any romance occurred between the two. It seems their relationship was more of an artistic partnership than anything, and they would have been a super dysfunctional couple anyway. Degas was a misanthropic Frenchman, and Cassatt was a feminist American who would never become the submissive woman Degas wanted. When asked if he was romantically involved with Cassatt, Degas responded, “I would have married her, but I never could have made love to her.” No wonder he ended up alone.

Oddly enough they remained good friends until Degas’ death in 1917. Toward the end of their lives, Degas and Cassatt both turned blind and lamented their loneliness by regretting never getting married. Whether or not you’re Team Degassatt, you have to admit Cassatt’s choice to keep Degas’ carefully-painted portrait of her even while hating it is loving in its own way, romantic or not.