Edgar Degas

Heirs of the artist
The Count and Countess Guy du Boisrouvray (sold: Sotheby's, New York, October 27, 1989, lot 83)
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

John Rewald, Degas, Works in Sculpture: A Complete Catalogue, New York, 1944, p. 23, no. XXXVI, illustrations of another cast pp. 88-91 
Franco Russoli and Fiorella Minervino, L'Opera completa di Degas, Milan, 1970, no. S-6, illustration of another cast p. 140
John Rewald, Degas’s Complete Sculpture, Catalogue Raisonné, San Francisco, 1990, no. XXXVI, pp. 90-91, illustration of the wax and another cast pp. 110-11
Sara Campbell, “Degas’ Bronzes”, Apollo, London, August 1995, no. 15, illustration of another cast p. 18
Joseph S. Czestochowski and Anne Pingeot, Degas Sculptures, Catalogue Raisonné of the Bronzes, Memphis, 2002, no. 15, illustration of another cast p. 150

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 possibilities 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 an 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 De Vonyar 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significance of this pose in 19th century classical dance and the formal complexity that it offered the sculptor: "An unpublished treatise written between 1868 and 1871 by the Opéra instructor Léopold Adice, Grammaire et Théorie choréographique..., makes it clear that the bent knee was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 of this sculpture was executed between 1882-85, according to John Rewald, and cast in an edition of twenty-two bronze examples between 1919-21.  The first twenty in each edition were numbered from A to T and were destined for sale; the twenty-first cast (the present lot) was marked HER.D and reserved for the Degas heirs; the twenty-second cast of each edition was unnumbered and became the property of the founder.