Edgar Degas

Atelier Edgar Degas (and sold: Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 3ème Vente, July 2-4, 1919, lot 286)
Ambroise Vollard, Paris
Christian de Galéa, Paris
Sam Salz, New York
Acquired from the above on March 24, 1952

St. Louis, Missouri, City Art Museum of St. Louis; Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art & Minneapolis, The Minneapolis Institute of Fine Arts, Drawings by Degas, 1966-67, no. 154, illustrated in the catalogue
Northampton, Smith College Museum of Art, Degas and the Dance, 1979, no. 18, illustrated in the catalogue
Tübingen, Kunsthalle & Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Edgar Degas, Pastelle, Ölskizzen, Zeichnungen, 1984, no. 223, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, Grand Palais; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art & Ottawa, Ontario, Musée des Beaux-Arts du Canada, Degas, 1988-89, no. 371, illustrated in the catalogue
Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, Degas: Beyond Impressionism, 1996-97, no. 96

Paul-André Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre, vol. II, Paris, 1946, no. 1190, illustrated n.p.
Lillian Browse, Degas Dancers, London, 1949, no. 243
Eugenia Parry Janis, "Degas Drawings," in The Burlington Magazine, vol. CIX, July 1967, p. 414

Executed on buff colored wove paper laid down on a thin board. Sheet is somewhat time darkened overall with mat staning at extreme perimeter and edges appear to have been cut. Extreme top and bottom left corners have been trimmed. one 3" tear at the lower-right edge; and four 2" tears to the bottom edge, with a few other small nicks and tears around extreme perimeter and a few scattered scuffs throughout. Overall work is in good condition.
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The present work is a drawing created as part of Degas’ important Russian Dancer series, which he is believed to have begun in 1899. In Trois danseuses Russes the artist captures the wild energy of the peasant dance. The loose, fluid lines of charcoal suggest whirling skirts and tossing hair, demonstrating a dynamic contrast to the rigid formality of the ballet in many of the artist’s other works.

According to Richard Kendall and Jill DeVonyar's informative monograph on Degas' dancers, there is no definitive evidence as to Degas' inspirational source for the near-dozen versions of this theme: "It would be a decade before Diaghilev's Ballet Russes ballet company took Paris by storm, and Degas' models most probably came from one of the traveling troupes of ethnic dancers recorded in cabarets and vaudevilles before the turn of the century" (Degas and the Dance (exhibition catalogue), The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit & The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 2002, p. 271). What Degas depicted in this series is most likely a Russian barynya, a quick-tempo folk dance that dates back to the tenth century. Linguistically derived from the Russian word for "landlord" or "baron,"  the dance is believed to have originated from the exercises that peasants would perform to stretch their legs after long periods of squatting in the fields. The refined version that developed over the years would ultimately inspire the great Russian choreographic pieces of the early twentieth century.

Placing this series as a high point of the artist's pursuits as a colorist, Richard Kendall wrote: "The culmination of Degas's ambition, as well as one of the most unexpected departures of his late career, was surely the series of Russian Dancers. Conspicuously situated in the open air, or against highly naturalistic backcloths that make no reference to their stage settings, these triumphant pastels belong to the great tradition of European figure art" (ibid., p. 278).

 

Fig. 1 Edgar Degas, Troise Danseuses Russes, pastel on paper, circa 1899, Private Collection