Edgar Degas

Atelier Degas (sold: Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 3ème Vente, December 11-13, 1918, lot 258)
Private Collection

Throughout his career Edgar Degas had been enchanted by the ballet; however, towards the end of the century he began to concentrate more on the individual gestures and movements of the dancer, particularly while resting or in repose.  During this period he produced a series of drawings and pastels in which he repeated particular poses.  In the present drawing the main figure stands with her hands akimbo while two other dancers stand behind her.

This study represents a well-developed example of the artist's lifelong pursuit of the ballet theme in the charcoal medium.  As Richard Kendall notes, "tracing was never used by Degas to make identical replicas of his pictures, but to disseminate a suite of endlessly nuanced variations and some radical transformations of his original subject.  Degas traced freely rather than pedantically, exploring the fluidity of the charcoal line to vary a pose or heighten a contour.  Despite their internal diversity, however, we are left with an inescapable sense of art that breeds from itself, of a process of self-reflection and contained fissle energy that turns to the outside world for nourishment but ultimately generates its own motive force" (Degas Beyond Impressionism (exhibition catalogue), National Gallery, London, 1996, p. 82).