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Lot Essay
This portrait, which Lemoisne dates to circa 1877, belongs to a group of four portraits of the same sitter, whom Lemoisne identifies as Mademoiselle Malo (L.441, 442, 443, 444). The first of this group, as illustrated in the catalogue raisonné, is the oil in The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (fig. 1). In the National Gallery picture the angle of Mme Malo's pose is the same as the present work but we can see the sitter's hands and the presence of a vase of chrysanthemums behind her, suggesting the scene of the portrait is a domestic interior. This domesticity is shared by the Detroit Museum of Arts portrait (L.442), which although similar to the National Gallery picture in compostion and setting, depicts Mme Malo as an older woman. All four works were probably executed at about the same time.
A pastel of Mme Malo (fig. 2; L.444) relates more closley to the present painting. In both the present work and the pastel, Mme Malo appears to be dressed as if she were either ready to go out or perhaps already in a public space. Such images of fashionable women were widespread in Degas's world, and whether at the race-track, on the beach or in a public park, the correctly dressed female with her plethora of accessories ensured the prosperity of the couturier, the milliner and the department-store owner. In the present picture Mme Malo's hair is tied back and she wears a fashionable hat upon which her voilette or vail is raised. The vail and hat is secured at slight angle with a pin with the suggestion of a delicate fleur à tissue attached. The white lace collar of Mme Malo's shirt can just be discerned beneath the dark fabric of her over-jacket.
Degas's pictures of women in the open air or in public spaces generally follow a different set of conventions from his portraits in domestic interiors (compare the present work with lot 17). Eye contact is rarely established and when the scale of the painting and our implied vantage point, as with Mme Malo, suggest proximity, it is the proximity of the passer by. A dancer and close friend of the artist, Mme Malo is at ease in Degas's presence. Seated, she leans casually back against the banquet or bench, her head and body diagonally inclined, however, in line with Degas's pictures of women in public, the intimacy of the view point is not met with a reciprocal gaze. Unobserved by the sitter, the viewer can languish over Mme Malo's delicate feature's, the sensuality of her red lips, her nose and left ear are described by Degas in sensitive detail. The sitter's eyelids are ever so slighly lowered creating a sense of languous contemplation.
Mme Malo was purchased at Degas's second studio sale in 1918 and either entered directly, or shortly after, the collection of Mr and Mrs Adolphe Friedmann. Mme Friedmann lent Mme Malo to the 1924 Galerie Georges Petit Degas exhibition in Paris, where it also hung with the Detroit pastel discussed above (L.444). Mme Malo was also exhibited with The National Gallery of Washington, D.C, picture (no. 50 in the catalogue) at the important Musée de l'Orangerie Paris exhibition, Degas, Portraitiste, Sculpteur, in 1931.
A pastel of Mme Malo (fig. 2; L.444) relates more closley to the present painting. In both the present work and the pastel, Mme Malo appears to be dressed as if she were either ready to go out or perhaps already in a public space. Such images of fashionable women were widespread in Degas's world, and whether at the race-track, on the beach or in a public park, the correctly dressed female with her plethora of accessories ensured the prosperity of the couturier, the milliner and the department-store owner. In the present picture Mme Malo's hair is tied back and she wears a fashionable hat upon which her voilette or vail is raised. The vail and hat is secured at slight angle with a pin with the suggestion of a delicate fleur à tissue attached. The white lace collar of Mme Malo's shirt can just be discerned beneath the dark fabric of her over-jacket.
Degas's pictures of women in the open air or in public spaces generally follow a different set of conventions from his portraits in domestic interiors (compare the present work with lot 17). Eye contact is rarely established and when the scale of the painting and our implied vantage point, as with Mme Malo, suggest proximity, it is the proximity of the passer by. A dancer and close friend of the artist, Mme Malo is at ease in Degas's presence. Seated, she leans casually back against the banquet or bench, her head and body diagonally inclined, however, in line with Degas's pictures of women in public, the intimacy of the view point is not met with a reciprocal gaze. Unobserved by the sitter, the viewer can languish over Mme Malo's delicate feature's, the sensuality of her red lips, her nose and left ear are described by Degas in sensitive detail. The sitter's eyelids are ever so slighly lowered creating a sense of languous contemplation.
Mme Malo was purchased at Degas's second studio sale in 1918 and either entered directly, or shortly after, the collection of Mr and Mrs Adolphe Friedmann. Mme Friedmann lent Mme Malo to the 1924 Galerie Georges Petit Degas exhibition in Paris, where it also hung with the Detroit pastel discussed above (L.444). Mme Malo was also exhibited with The National Gallery of Washington, D.C, picture (no. 50 in the catalogue) at the important Musée de l'Orangerie Paris exhibition, Degas, Portraitiste, Sculpteur, in 1931.