Edgar Degas

Estate of the artist (and sold: Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, 4ème Vente Degas, July 2-4, 1919, lot 20)
Henri Cottevieille, Paris (acquired at the above sale)
Private Collection, France (by descent from the above and sold: Sotheby's, London, June 29, 1999, lot 228)
Private Collection (acquired at the above sale)
Sale: Sotheby's, London, June 19, 2012, lot 41
Acquired at the above sale by A. Alfred Taubman

Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek & Columbus, Columbus Museum of Art, Edgar Degas: The Last Landscapes, 2006-07, no. 85, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Paul-André Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre, vol. III, Paris, 1946, no. 1217, illustrated p. 706
Jacques Lassaigne & Fiorella Minervino, Tout l'oeuvre peint de Degas, Paris, 1974, no. 1180a, illustrated

Executed on grey paper, the edges are lined with strips of paper of a similar color; the sheet is attached to the mount at intervals along the reverse of all four edges. The edges of the original sheet are deckled, display multiple minor nicks and tears. There are artist's pinholes in each of the corners. The sheet undulates slightly and is very slightly time darkened. The medium is well preserved. There appear to be some very minor retouches along the lower edge. A very thin vertical hairline surface scratch running parallel to the upper right edge, which is barely visible to the naked eye. This work is in overall very good condition.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This beautifully executed pastel of a country road in Saint-Valéry, the resort town along the estuary of the Somme, is among Degas' rare and most technically sophisticated landscapes. The work is one of the fifteen depictions of Saint-Valéry that Degas completed in the late 1890s, and this particular view is most closely related to an oil version now in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek in Copenhagen. In his survey of Degas' landscapes, Richard Kendall singles out the Saint-Valéry series for its unexpected break from Degas' usual aesthetic and for its influence on the development of avant-garde landscape painting in the decades to come. He points out that while little scholarly attention has been paid to these pictures, "[w]here they have been mentioned, if only in passing, startling claims have been made on their behalf: The influence of Gauguin on one of the canvases has been noted by Jean Boggs; their 'abstracted shapes' have suggested 'proto-Fauvist colours' to Ronald Pickvance; and an anticipation of the forms of Cubism has been proposed by Denys Sutton" (Richard Kendall, Degas Landscapes, New Haven & London, 1993, p. 249).

Degas had visited Saint-Valéry numerous times as a child while on holiday with his family, and his brother René bought a house there three decades later. It was on one of these visits to his brother in 1898 that Degas completed this pastel, surrounded by landmarks of his past. According to Jeanne Raunay, the artist's depictions of Saint-Valéry are rich with personal symbolism: "Degas loved to return to this little town where his parents had taken him as a child. He found there everything he had once enjoyed: the sea with all its surprises, roads, bordered by old houses, the walls of a ruined tower, a monumental gate under which Joan of Arc had passed; but above all, he would rediscover the first memories of his childhood, and he could recall those he had loved" (quoted in ibid., p. 258). The present composition, like the related canvas, depicts the wide, overgrown path along the rue de Quesnoy, with its ivy covered walls and stone cottages in the distance. According to Kendall, the present work is one of two pastel versions of this precise vantage, and it is believed to have been done en plein air for later completion of the oil in his studio.