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Lot Essay
Professor Theodore Reff has confirmed the authencity of this drawing.
The present work is a study for Degas' painting Madame Gaujelin of 1867 (fig. 1; Lemoisne 165). Joséphine Gaujelin was a dancer at the Paris opera in the 1860s to the early 1870s and later worked at the Théâtre du Gymnase as an actress. Degas completed another oil sketch of her as a dancer in 1873 (Lemoisne, no. 325).
Etude de mains, with its fine but strong pencil lines and softer areas of shading, is typical of Degas' drawings of the late 1860s. Indeed, it is similar to another preparatory study of a woman's hands, executed in his notebook of 1867-75 (Reff, Notebook 22, p. 37), for the painting Mme. Julie Burtin (Lemoisne, no. 108). Degas' close examination of his model's hands is not only visible in his drawings but in his finished oils. The prominent display of Mme Gaujelin's folded hands is so striking in the portrait that the painting was often referred to as La femme aux mains jointes.
(fig. 1) Edgar Degas, Madame Gaujelin, 1967, oil on canvas. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA/Bridgeman Art Library.
The present work is a study for Degas' painting Madame Gaujelin of 1867 (fig. 1; Lemoisne 165). Joséphine Gaujelin was a dancer at the Paris opera in the 1860s to the early 1870s and later worked at the Théâtre du Gymnase as an actress. Degas completed another oil sketch of her as a dancer in 1873 (Lemoisne, no. 325).
Etude de mains, with its fine but strong pencil lines and softer areas of shading, is typical of Degas' drawings of the late 1860s. Indeed, it is similar to another preparatory study of a woman's hands, executed in his notebook of 1867-75 (Reff, Notebook 22, p. 37), for the painting Mme. Julie Burtin (Lemoisne, no. 108). Degas' close examination of his model's hands is not only visible in his drawings but in his finished oils. The prominent display of Mme Gaujelin's folded hands is so striking in the portrait that the painting was often referred to as La femme aux mains jointes.
(fig. 1) Edgar Degas, Madame Gaujelin, 1967, oil on canvas. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA/Bridgeman Art Library.