Edgar Degas

Sale: Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, 4ème Vente Atelier Edgar Degas, 2nd-4th July 1919, lot 25a
Nunès and Figuet, Paris
Captain R.A. Peto, Isle of Wight
Moss S. Myers, Esq.
Estate of the above (sale: Sotheby & Co., London, 6th June 1945, lot 151)
The Lefevre Gallery, London (purchased at the above sale)
John Hay Whitney, Manhasset (acquired from the above on 12th June 1945)
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, 15th November, 1984, lot 106
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Denis Rouart, Degas: A la rècherche de sa technique, Paris, 1945, p. 71
Paul-André Lemoisne, Degas et son œuvre, Paris, 1946, vol. II, no. 240, illustrated p. 117
Eugenia Parry Janis, "The Role of the Monotype in the Working Method of Degas", in The Burlington Magazine, vol CIX, 766-67, January-February 1967, p. 25
Franco Russoli and Fiorella Minervino, L'Opera completa di Degas, Milan, 1970, no. 305, illustrated
Richard Kendall, Degas Landscapes, New Haven, 1993, illustrated fig. 85, p. 102

In 1869, Edgar Degas executed a series of pastel seascapes of the Normandy coast.  According to Richard Kendall, these 'seminal' works are best understood when examined in the context of the artists from whom he drew inspiration during this period, including contemporary landscape painters as well as various masters of the past including Delacroix, Courbet, Boudin and Jongkind. 

While it is impossible to pinpoint the exact location of Marine, Soleil Couchant, a particulary poignant note by Degas demonstrates the profound impact that this area had on him: 'Villers-sur-Mer, sun-set, cold and dull orange-pink, whitish green, neutral, sea like a sardine's back and clearer than the sky.  Line of the seashore brown, the first pools of water reflecting the orange, the second reflecting the upper sky; in front, coffee-coloured sand, rather sombre' (quoted in R. Kendall, op. cit, p. 98).