47
47

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE FRENCH COLLECTION

Edgar Degas
CHEZ LA MODISTE (MODISTE GARNISSANT UN CHAPEAU)
Estimate
300,000 — 500,000
EUR
LOT SOLD. 367,500 EUR
JUMP TO LOT
47

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE FRENCH COLLECTION

Edgar Degas
CHEZ LA MODISTE (MODISTE GARNISSANT UN CHAPEAU)
Estimate
300,000 — 500,000
EUR
LOT SOLD. 367,500 EUR
JUMP TO LOT

Details & Cataloguing

Œuvres sur Papier

|
Paris

Edgar Degas
1834 - 1917
CHEZ LA MODISTE (MODISTE GARNISSANT UN CHAPEAU)
stamped Degas (lower left)
pastel and charcoal on paper
18 x 23 in.
Executed circa 1885.
Read Condition Report Read Condition Report

The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Galerie Brame & Lorenceau.

Provenance

Sale: Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, Atelier Edgar Degas, 2ème vente, 11th-13th December 1918, lot 251
Hodier, Paris
André & Olga Wormser, Paris
Thence by descent to the present owner

Literature

Paul-André Lemoisne, Degas et son œuvre, vol. III, Paris, 1946, no. 835, illustrated p. 483
Connaissance des Arts, May 1961

Catalogue Note

This work is a study for Chez la modiste, circa 1882-1886, oil on canvas, 99 x 109 cm, displayed at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Throughout his career, Degas often returned to the theme of the milliner in his paintings, pastels and drawings. As wrote the art critic Edmond Duranty, who frequented the Café Guerbois aux Batignolles where Degas, Renoir and Pissarro among others met during the 1860s, “what we need is the special mark of the modern individual, in his clothes, in the middle of his social habits, at his home or in the street. “ (Edmond Duranty, La nouvelle Peinture, 1876).

Degas thus captured “modern life” through this theme and the new jobs available to women in the bustle of the Parisian boulevards, boutiques and department stores.

Degas often accompanied his women friends, in particular Marie Cassatt, to the milliner’s where the deployment of coloured hats and dresses, squeezed into intimate interiors, offered the possibility of new compositions. In Chez la modiste (At the Milliner’s) the painter applies his new approach to composition, with cut planes, the same he employed for representing dancers and the backstage of the Opera. The pastel medium perfectly reveals here the ephemeral aspect of the fabrics presented by the milliner. This original work has not appeared at auction since the second Degas sale in December 1918.

JUMP TO LOT

Œuvres sur Papier

|
Paris