EDGAR DEGAS | Danseuse habillée au repos, les mains sur les reins, la jambe droite en avant

Alfred Flechtheim, Berlin (acquired from the Hébrard Foundry on 28th September 1926) Moritz Gutmann, Berlin & New York (founder of the French Art Galleries, New York; probably acquired from the above)

Georges Bigar, New York & Lausanne (acquired from the above by 1967)

Thence by descent to the present owner in 1986

(possibly) Berlin, Galerie Flechtheim; Munich, Moderne Galerie Thannhauser & Dresden, Galerie Arnold, Edgar Degas. Das plastische Werk, 1926, no. 23 Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie des Tuileries, Chefs-d'œuvre des collections suisses de Manet à Picasso, 1967, no. 21, illustrated in the catalogue

Lausanne, Fondation de l'Hermitage, L'Impressionnisme dans les collections romandes, 1984, no. 34, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

John Rewald (ed.), Degas, Works in Sculpture: A Complete Catalogue, New York, 1944, no. LII, another cast illustrated p. 115 Pierre Borel, Les Sculptures inédites de Degas, Geneva, 1949, another cast illustrated

John Rewald, L'Œuvre sculpté de Degas, Zurich & Paris, 1957, no. LII, another cast illustrated pl. 52

Theodore Reff, Degas: The Artist's Mind, New York, 1976, no. 159, another cast illustrated p. 241

John Rewald, Degas's Complete Sculpture: Catalogue Raisonné, San Francisco, 1990, no. LII, wax model and another cast illustrated pp. 142 & 143

Anne Pingeot & Frank Horvat, Degas Sculptures, Paris, 1991, no. 23, wax model and another cast illustrated p. 163

Sara Campbell, 'Degas, The Sculptures: A Catalogue Raisonné', in Apollo, London, August 1995, no. 51, fig. 49, another cast illustrated p. 35; the present cast listed p. 36

Joseph S. Czestochowski & Anne Pingeot, Degas Sculptures, Catalogue Raisonné of the Bronzes, Memphis, 2002, no. 51, wax model and another cast illustrated pp. 220 & 221; the present cast listed p. 221

Sara Campbell, Richard Kendall, Daphne Barbour & Shelley Sturman, Degas in the Norton Simon Museum, London, 2009, vol. II, no. 78, wax model and another cast illustrated pp. 400-402

Suzanne Glover Lindsay, Daphne S. Barbour & Shelley G. Sturman, Edgar Degas Sculpture, Princeton, 2010, wax model illustrated p. 370

The present composition is one of four sculptures that Degas executed on the subject of Dancer at Rest, and the only one depicting the ballerina in a costume. With her right leg in front and arms resting on her waist, she is stretching either before or after a performance, her head lifting as her back arches gently. ‘Cast from the wax original today in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Dressed dancer at rest depicts a pose that recurs in works in other media as well as in three dimensions. Hébrard assigned four sculptures the same name, although this is the only one of the group that is dressed. In fact, this work is the only sculpture in the entire corpus other than the Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen to have been modeled in a tutu. Unlike the cotton and silk tutu of the wax Little Dancer, however, the Richmond figure wears a tutu fashioned in wax, stuffed in part on the underside with newspaper. Perhaps by showing this dancer in a performance tutu, Degas inadvertently provided context, that of the stage or, rather, backstage. […] Life backstage was not limited to the dancers; it was also an area where male visitors of privilege could mingle with the dancers and watch the performance’ (Daphne Barbour in Degas in the Norton Simon Museum, London, 2009, vol. II, pp. 400 & 402).  

A number of bronze casts of Danseuse habillée au repos, les mains sur les reins, la jambe droite en avant are now in international museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Musée d’Orsay in Paris and Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen.

This lot is sold pursuant to a settlement agreement between the heirs of Alfred Flechtheim and the present owners.