Cheval faisant une descente de main

Details

Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Cheval faisant une descente de main
stamped with signature, numbered and stamped with foundry mark 'Degas 22/J AA HEBRARD CIRE PERDUE' (Lugt 658; on the top of the base)
bronze with brown patina
Height: 7 ¼ in. (18.5 cm.)
Length: 10 ¾ in. (27.3 cm.)
Original wax model executed in the late 1880s; this bronze version cast by 1923 in an edition numbered A to T, plus two casts reserved for the Degas heirs and the founder Hébrard marked HER.D and HER respectively

Provenance

Walther Halvorsen, London (August 1923).
Claude Johnson, London.
Private collection, London; sale, Christie's, London, 2 May 1969, lot 29.
Fletcher Jones, Santa Ynez (acquired at the above sale); Estate sale, Christie's, London, 2 December 1975, lot 41.
Private collection, Santa Fe.
Constance Barber Mellon, New York.
Connie Walsh, Los Angeles and Richard Walsh, San Francisco (acquired from the above).
Acquired from the above by the late owner, circa 1993.

Literature

P. Vitry, Catalogue des sculptures du Moyen âge, de la Renaissance et des temps modernes, Supplément, Paris, 1933, p. 70, no. 1763.
J. Rewald, Degas Works in Sculpture: A Complete Catalogue, New York, 1944, p. 20, no. XII (another cast illustrated, pp. 46 and 47).
P. Borel, Les sculptures inédites de Degas, Geneva, 1949 (original wax model illustrated).
J. Fèvre, Mon oncle Degas, souvenirs et documents, Geneva, 1949, p. 8 (original wax model illustrated).
J. Rewald and L. von Matt, Degas, Sculpture: The Complete Works, New York, 1956, p. 143, no. XII (original wax model illustrated).
J. Lassaigne and F. Minervino, Tout l'oeuvre peint de Degas, Paris, 1974, p. 142, no. S46 (another cast illustrated, p. 143).
C.W. Millard, The Sculpture of Edgar Degas, Princeton, 1976, p. xiv, no. 63 (original wax model illustrated, p. 177).
J. Rewald, Degas's Complete Sculpture: Catalogue Raisonné, San Francisco, 1990, p. 66, no. XII (another cast illustrated; original wax model illustrated, p. 67).
A. Pingeot, Degas Sculptures, Paris, 1991, p. 175, no. 46 (another cast illustrated; another cast illustrated again, pls. 90-91).
S. Campbell, "Degas: The Sculptures, A Catalogue Raisonné," Apollo, vol. CXLII, no. 402, August 1995, pp. 21-22, no. 22 (another cast illustrated).
J.S. Czestochowski and A. Pingeot, eds., Degas Sculptures: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Bronzes, Memphis, 2002, p. 165, no. 22 (original wax model illustrated; another cast illustrated in color, p. 164).
S. Campbell, R. Kendall, D.S. Barbour and S.G. Sturman, Degas in the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, 2009, vol. II, pp. 267-270 and 518-519, no. 44 (original wax model illustrated, p. 268; another cast illustrated in color, p. 269).
S.G. Lindsay, D.S. Barbour and S.G. Sturman, Edgar Degas Sculpture, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2010, pp. 99-102, no. 12 (original wax model illustrated in color, pp. 100-101, fig. 2).

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Lot Essay

Cheval faisant une descente de main, one of Degas' most popular sculptures, is cast from one of the fifteen equine statues that Degas modeled in wax. He executed drawings and wax figures as studies in movement and kept them in his studio as he completed his paintings of racing scenes. Manipulating the highly pliable wax over improvised armatures, Degas explored the movements of horses while pursuing the same theme with his modeled dancing figures. Commenting on Degas's use of these drawings and sculptures, Anne Dumas writes, "Degas was obsessed, above all, with the figure, with movement and pose. Drawing for him was a way of discovering and capturing motion and posture. His sculpture can perhaps be seen as an extension to drawing, a means by which Degas could work through his ideas in a direct, tactile and three-dimensional form, and a fresh arena in which to work out problems. Like his printmaking, sculpture was a particularly experimental form" (quoted in J.S. Czestochowski and A. Pingeot, eds., op. cit., p. 40). Degas was so absorbed by these equine figures that in 1888 he gave them priority over his series of pastel bathers, writing to Albert Bartholomé, "I have not yet made enough horses. The women must wait in their basins" (quoted in J.S. Boggs, Degas at the Races, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998, p. 197).
In his bronze horses, Degas defies the static posture and severe realism of the equine sculptures created by contemporary academic artists. Movement and drama are conveyed in the present work through the balking horse's head, lowered to the side and mouth open, straining against an imaginary jockey. In the next moment the horse's head will swing up in a full rear. Degas' equine sculptures relate to his studies of the ballerina, both illustrating his endless fascination with capturing movement. The balletic quality of Cheval faisant une descente de main, moreover, reflects Paul Valéry's assertion that his horses were four-legged ballerinas, dancing en pointe outdoors (see S.G. Lindsay, D.S. Barbour and S.G. Sturman, op. cit., p. 64).

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