Edgar Degas

Otto M. Gerson, New York
Norton Simon & Lucille Ellis Simon, Los Angeles (acquired from the above in 1956)
Lucille Ellis Simon, Los Angeles (acquired in 1970)
Thence by descent

Exposition des sculptures de Degas (exhibition catalogue), Galerie A.A. Hébrard, Paris, 1921, no. 50
John Rewald, Degas, Works in Sculpture, A Complete Catalogue, New York, 1944, no. 50, illustrations of other casts pp. 111-12
Leonard von Matt & John Rewald, Degas Sculpture: The Complete Works, New York, 1956, illustration of another cast pl. 75
Charles W. Millard, The Sculpture of Edgar Degas, Princeton, 1976, no. 107, illustration of another cast n.p.
Degas, Scultore (exhibition catalogue), Palazzo Strozzi, Florence & Palazzo Forti, Verona, 1986, no. 50, illustrations of another cast pp. 147 & 199
John Rewald, Degas's Complete Sculpture, Catalogue Raisonné, San Francisco, 1990, illustration of another cast p. 139
Anne Pingeot, Degas, Sculptures, Paris, 1991, no. 62, illustrations of other casts pp. 106-07 & 182-83
Sara Campbell, "Degas, The Sculptures, A Catalogue Raisonné" in Apollo, vol. CXLII, no. 402, August, 1995, illustration of another cast p. 35
Joseph S. Czestochowski & Anne Pingeot, Degas Sculptures, Catalogue Raisonné of the Bronzes, Memphis, 2002, no. 50, illustrations of other casts pp. 218-19
Sara Campbell, Richard Kendall, Daphne Barbour & Shelly Sturman, Degas in the Norton Simon Museum, Nineteenth-Century Art, vol. II, Pasadena, 2009, illustrations of another cast pp. 63-64 & 426-29 

This work is in excellent condition and features a rich brown patina. The surface is handsomely modeled. Possible plaster remnants are visible within the crevice of the figure's upper elbow. There is some very minor surface dust and wear consistent with age.
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.
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Femme se coiffant is a remarkable example of Degas’ supreme mastery of the subtleties and refinements of the sculptural technique. By and large, the three-dimensional medium of sculpture offered Edgar Degas the most possibilities for capturing the grace and beauty of his subjects and for exploring the seemingly boundless capabilities of their bodies. The subject of a bather, or in this instance a woman arranging her hair, was a recurring them for Degas that grew in importance for the artist as his career progressed. Degas had a preference for a limited number of poses that he found particularly exciting, and he often created studies in a variety of mediums of the same poses. He produced a number of studies, both in two and three dimensions, of the figure of a nude woman, seen from the back, with her hair cascading down around her.  

The strong and supple contours that define the figure’s form illustrate Degas’ exceptional aptitude for representing the body in motion. "It was in his passionate search for movement that all the statuettes of dancers doing arabesques, bowing, rubbing their knees, putting their stockings on, etc., and of women arranging their hair, stretching, rubbing their neck and so on were created. All these women are caught in poses which represent one single instant, in an arrested movement which is pregnant with the movement just completed and the one about to follow. To use Baudelaire's words, Degas 'loved the human body as a material harmony, as a beautiful architecture with the addition of movement'" (John Rewald, op. cit., 1944, p. 23). In Femme se coiffant Degas skillfully captures his subject in a pose which represents one single, fleeting moment, as if captured through the use of a camera.