Edgar Degas

Sale: Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, 2ème Vente Atelier Edgar Degas, 11th-13th December 1918, lot 76
René de Gas, Paris
Lefevre Gallery, London
Gallery Flechtheim, Dusseldorf
Galerie Kurt Meissner, Zurich
Acquired from the above by the father of the present owner in the early 1950s

Paul-André Lemoisne, Degas et son œuvre, New York & London, 1984, vol. III, no. 1362, illustrated p. 795

Executed on buff-coloured wove paper, laid down on board. There are minor nicks and tears at intermittent intervals to all four edges, and there are minor folds to the edge of the sheet around the upper right corner. There are scattered spots of foxing throughout the sheet, particularly to the lower half, and some paper wear to the periphery due to overmount rubbing. Apart from time staining to centre of the sheet and some light surface dirt, this work is in fairly good condition. Colours: The paper tone is paler and less red and the shading more defined in the original.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Danseuse rajustant son épaulette is a wonderfully naturalistic pastel in which Degas takes advantage of his facility with the medium to tenderly capture an intimate and unguarded pose of a dancer adjusting her dress. The artist's lifelong interest in dance developed in the 1860s, when as a young man he regularly attended the ballet and other performances such as opera, café-concerts and the circus. Degas was fascinated not only by the public spectacle of ballet performances, but also by the more informal situations around them: the behind-the-scenes world of the rehearsal room or the dance class, the dancers' preparation for and tension before a performance, and the more relaxed, casual moments that followed afterwards. The depiction of the dancer in this work lacks any artifice and gives the pastel an unpretentious realism that was the ultimate aim of these depictions of ballet dancers. 

The quality of Degas's draughtsmanship is clearly evident in the beautiful shading which describes the contours of the dancer's figure, and this work also illustrates his new interest in colour, characteristic of the works of the 1890s. The success of Degas' late pastels of dancers and their importance in the artist's œuvre was acknowledged by John Rewald: 'In his [...] important pastels of dancers and nudes, he was gradually reducing the emphasis on line in order to seek the pictorial. Resorting to ever more vibrant colour effects, he found in his pastels a means to unite line and colour. While every pastel stroke became a colour accent, its function in the whole was often not different from that of the impressionist brush stroke. His pastels became multicoloured fireworks where all precision of form disappeared in favour of a texture that glittered with hatchings' (John Rewald, The History of Impressionism, New York, 1973, p. 566).