Edgar Degas

Estate of the artist (sold: Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1re Vente de l'Atelier Degas, 6th-8th May 1918, lot 265)
Mancini Collection, Paris (purchased at the above sale)
M & Mme E. Riché, Paris (sold: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 16th May 1934, lot 3)
Purchased at the above sale by the family of the present owner

Paul-André Lemoisne, Degas et son œuvre, Paris, 1946, vol. III, no. 1191, illustrated p. 693 (as dating from 1895)
Franco Russoli & Fiorella Minervino, L'Opera completa di Degas, Milan, 1970, no. 183, illustrated p. 134 (as dating from possibly 1895)

Executed on three joined sheets of paper, laid down on card which is attached to a board, which appears to be the artist’s original arrangement. Apart from a tiny paper loss in the upper left corner (not visible when framed), this work is in very good original condition. The pastel is very bright, fresh and unfaded. Colours: In comparison to the printed catalogue illustration, the colours are overall slightly lighter and brighter in the original. The skirt of the woman on the right is orange, and not red as it appears in the catalogue illustration.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

'An orgy of colour'  was the provocative phrase that Degas used to describe his series of pastels devoted to the theme of Russian dancers. Thanks to Julie Manet, who transcribed Degas' very words into her diary on 1st July 1899, we know that the artist was thrilled at the outcome of this series. Encountering the young Julie on the street in Paris, the artist implored her to come to his studio to see how he had captured the pageantry of these Slavic dancers as they whirled and kicked in a blaze of colour. Manet recalled the event as follows: 'He talked about painting, then suddenly said to us, "I am going to show you the orgy of colour I am making at the moment," and then he took us up to his studio. We were very moved, because he never shows works in progress. He pulled out three pastels of women in Russian costumes with flowers in their hair, pearl necklaces, white blouses, skirts in lively hues, and red boots, dancing in an imaginary landscape, which is most real. The movements are astonishingly drawn, and the costumes are of very beautiful colours. In one the figures are illuminated by a pink sun, in another the dresses are shown more crudely, and in the third, the sky is clear, the sun has just disappeared behind the hill, and the dancers stand out in a kind of half-light. The quality of the whites against the sky is marvelous, the effect so true' (J. Manet, quoted in Degas (exhibition catalogue), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988, p. 581).

The three pictures that Julie Manet saw that day are believed to be those now in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (fig. 1), the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (fig. 2), and another formerly in a private collection. Like the present pastel, these pictures all make use of startling and unexpected chromatic combinations. Nothing in Degas' œuvre thus far had demonstrated such a daring use of colour, and the tonal brilliance of his pastels thereafter was indebted to the innovation of these works. When Lemoisne published his catalogue raisonné in 1946, he assigned the date of 1895 to the present work. However following the publication of Julie Manet's diary in 1979, it is believed that Degas only began his work on this series in 1899. Placing this series as a high-point of the artist's pursuits as a colourist, Richard Kendall wrote: 'The culmination of Degas's ambition, as well as one of the most unexpected departures of his late career, was surely the series of Russian Dancers. Conspicuously situated in the open air, or against highly naturalistic backcloths that make no reference to their stage settings, these triumphant pastels belong to the great tradition of European figure art' (R. Kendall in Degas: Beyond Impressionism (exhibition catalogue), The Art Institute of Chicago, 1996, p. 278).

According to Richard Kendall and Jill DeVonyar's informative monograph on Degas' dancers, there is no definitive evidence as to Degas' inspirational source for the near-dozen versions of this theme. 'It would be a decade before Diaghilev's Ballet Russes ballet company took Paris by storm, and Degas' models most probably came from one of the traveling troupes of ethnic dancers recorded in cabarets and vaudevilles before the turn of the century' (R. Kendall & J. DeVonyar, Degas and the Dance (exhibition catalogue), The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit & The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 2002, p. 271). What Degas depicted in this series is most likely a Russian barynya, a quick-tempo folk dance that dates back to the 10th century. Derived from the Russian term for 'landlord' or 'baron',  the dance was believed to have originated from the exercises that peasants would perform to stretch their legs after long periods of squatting in the fields. The refined dance that developed over the centuries would ultimately inspire the great Russian choreographic pieces of the early 20th century (fig. 3).

The success of Degas' late pastels and their importance in the artist's œuvre was acknowledged by John Rewald: 'In his [...] important pastels of dancers and nudes, he was gradually reducing the emphasis on line in order to seek the pictorial. Resorting to ever more vibrant colour effects, he found in his pastels a means to unite line and colour. While every pastel stroke became a colour accent, its function in the whole was often not different from that of the impressionist brush stroke. His pastels became multicoloured fireworks where all precision of form disappeared in favour of a texture that glittered with hatchings' (J. Rewald, The History of Impressionism, New York, 1973, p. 566).

Fig. 1, Edgar Degas, Danseuses russes, 1899, pastel on paper, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Fig. 2, Edgar Degas, Danseuses russes, 1899, pastel on paper, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Fig. 3, Ballets russes dancer Alice Nikitina performing Zéphire et Flore in 1925. Photograph V&A: Theatre & Performance Collections