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Lot Essay
Philippe Brame and Theodore Reff will include this pastel in the second supplement of the Edgar Degas catalogue raisonn currently in preparation.
Paul Valpinon, his wife Marguerite and their daughter Hortense were close friends of Degas for most of the artist's life. From 1861 onwards Degas often spent summer holidays at the Valpinon family estate in Mnil-Hubert in Orne, Normandy. Degas and Paul Valpinon frequently visited the national stud farm in nearby Haras du Pin, and the racetrack at Argentan, where Degas made studies of racehorses and jockeys.
Hortense Valpinon was born in 1862, and Degas painted a celebrated portrait of her leaning against a table in 1871 (Lemoisne, no. 206; coll. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts). In 1883 Degas drew two sensitive profiles of her (one in the coll. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the other, Lemoisne, no. 722, coll. Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia). Hortense later recalled a pastel done of her seated outdoors, which Gary Tinterow has identified as probably being Lemoisne, no. 857 (dated circa 1885; see Degas, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988, p. 409). Hortense wears a red apron in the latter work, as does the subject in the present pastel. It is very likely that the sitter here is also Hortense, who, after her marriage and the death of her father, continued to welcome Degas to Mnil-Hubert.
Paul Valpinon, his wife Marguerite and their daughter Hortense were close friends of Degas for most of the artist's life. From 1861 onwards Degas often spent summer holidays at the Valpinon family estate in Mnil-Hubert in Orne, Normandy. Degas and Paul Valpinon frequently visited the national stud farm in nearby Haras du Pin, and the racetrack at Argentan, where Degas made studies of racehorses and jockeys.
Hortense Valpinon was born in 1862, and Degas painted a celebrated portrait of her leaning against a table in 1871 (Lemoisne, no. 206; coll. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts). In 1883 Degas drew two sensitive profiles of her (one in the coll. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the other, Lemoisne, no. 722, coll. Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia). Hortense later recalled a pastel done of her seated outdoors, which Gary Tinterow has identified as probably being Lemoisne, no. 857 (dated circa 1885; see Degas, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988, p. 409). Hortense wears a red apron in the latter work, as does the subject in the present pastel. It is very likely that the sitter here is also Hortense, who, after her marriage and the death of her father, continued to welcome Degas to Mnil-Hubert.