Lot 1
  • 1

Edgar Degas

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Description

  • Edgar Degas
  • Grande Arabesque, Deuxieme temps
  • Signed Degas numbered 15/C and stamped CIRE PERDUE A.A. HÉBRARD

  • Bronze, brown patina
  • Height: 17 in. (43 cm)
  • Length: 24 1/2 in. (62.2 cm)

Provenance

André Meyer, New York (sold: Sotheby’s, New York, October 22, 1980, lot 17)

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Literature

John Rewald, Degas: Works in Sculpture, New York, 1944, no. XXXVI illustrated pp. 88-91

Lillian Browse, Degas Dancers, London, 1949, illustrated pl. 157

John Rewald and Leonard von Matt, L’Oeuvre Sculpté de Degas, Zürich, 1957, no. XXXVI, illustrated pls. 39, 40 and 43

Degas, Oeuvres du Musée du Louvre. Peintures, Pastels, Dessins, Sculptures (exhibition catalogue), Orangerie des Tuileries, Paris, 1969, no. 248, listed p. 47

Franco Russoli and Fiorella Minervino, L’opera completa di Degas, Milan, 1970, no. S6, illustration of another cast p. 140

John Rewald, The Complete Sculptures of Degas (exhibition catalogue), The Lefevre Gallery, London, 1976, no. 6, illustration of another cast p. 25

Charles W. Millard, The Sculpture of Edgar Degas, Princeton, 1976, no. 90, illustration of the wax pl. 90 (as dating from 1885-90)

Degas scultore (exhibition catalogue), Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Palazzo Forti, Verona, 1986, no. 15, illustration of another cast p. 114

Richard Kendall, Degas: Images of Women, Liverpool, 1989, fig. 29, illustration of another cast p. 54

John Rewald, Degas’s Complete Sculpture, Catalogue Raisonné, San Francisco, 1990, no. XXXVI, illustrations of wax original and another cast pp. 110 and 111

Anne Pingeot and Frank Horvat, Degas Sculptures, Paris, 1991, no. 6, illustrations of another cast pp. 72 and 73

Sara Campbell, "Degas’ Bronzes," Apollo, London, August 1995, no. 15, illustration of another cast p. 18

Catalogue Note

Throughout his career, Degas constantly experimented with rendering the form of the dancer in various poses. By and large, the three-dimensional medium of sculpture offered him the most possiblities for capturing the grace and beauty of these figures and for exploring the seemingly boundless flexibility of their bodies. For the present work, the artist has rendered the dancer posing with her left leg extended backwards, almost parallel to the ground, and her right arm extending forwards, counterbalancing her weight. This position, known as arabesque, is one of the most animated poses of the ballet, and was commonly depicted in Degas' paintings, drawings and pastels, in addition to several sculptural renderings. The present sculpture is the second of three related versions of this subject, and one of his most expressive figural compositions.

 

Jill DeVonyar and Richard Kendall have written about the significance of this pose in 19th century classical dance and the formal complexity that it offered the sculptor: "An unpublished treatise written between 1868 and 1871 by the Opéra instructor Leopold Adice, Grammaire et Théorie choréographique..., makes it clear that the bent knee was actively promoted. Adice's manuscript was extensively illustrated by himself, and as Sandra Noll Hammond has noted, in his drawings of high arabesques, 'the raised leg is always shown as though with a slightly relaxed knee.' In this context, we should note that Degas' sensitively modeled, lyrical figure is represented in the nude, allowing him to give full articulation to the currently preferred pose and, incidentally, to reveal the true shape of his uncorseted model" (Jill De Vonyar and Richard Kendall, Degas and the Dance (exhibition catalogue), The Detroit Institute of Arts; The Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2002-03, p. 153).

 

The original wax model was executed between 1882-85, according to John Rewald, and cast in an edition of twenty-two bronze examples between 1919-1921, numbered A to T, plus two casts, numbered HER and HER.D, reserved for the Degas heirs and Hébrard. The number 15 refers to the inventory of the wax models in the artist's studio.