Degas kept hidden the monotypes to his contemporaries by storing them in his atelier; he sometimes gave copies to just a few trusted friends. Ambroise Vollard’s perseverance and stubborn let people know his research and made it popular. Mimes des Courtisanes is a set of dialogues telling the initiation and life of the courtesans of ancient Greece in which Degas included images taken from the Parisian pleasure houses, i.e. the famous Maison Close already featured in another famous series of monotypes.