Femme sortant du bain

Details

EDGAR DEGAS (1834-1917)
Femme sortant du bain
stamped with signature, numbered and stamped with foundry mark 'Degas 71/I A.A. HÉBRARD CIRE PERDUE' (Lugt 658; on the top of the base)
bronze with reddish-brown patina
Height: 16 ¾ in. (42.1 cm.)
Original wax version executed 1896-1911; this bronze version cast 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

Galerie de l’Art Moderne, Paris.
O'Hana Gallery, London (acquired from the above, March 1957).

Literature

J. Rewald, Degas Works in Sculpture: A Complete Catalogue, London, 1944, p. 27, no. LIX (another cast illustrated, pp. 124-125).
J. Rewald and L. von Matt, L'oeuvre sculpté de Degas, Zurich, 1957, pp. 155 and 164, no. LIX (another cast illustrated, pl. 79).
F. Russoli and F. Minervino, L'opera completa di Degas, Milan, 1970, p. 144, no. S65 (another cast illustrated, p. 145).
J. Rewald, Degas' Complete Sculpture: Catalogue Raisonné, San Francisco, 1990, pp. 156-157, no. LIX (another cast illustrated).
S. Campbell, "Degas, The Sculptures: The Catalogue Raisonné" in Apollo, August 1995, vol. CXLII, no. 402, pp. 45-46, no. 71 (another cast illustrated).
J.S. Czestochowski and A. Pingeot, Degas Sculptures: Catalogue Raisonné of the Bronzes, Memphis, 2002, p. 261, no. 71 (another cast illustrated in color).
S. Campbell, R. Kendall, D.S. Barbour and S.G. Sturman, Degas in the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, 2009, vol. II, pp. 471-472 and 554, no. 71 (original wax model and another cast illustrated in color, pp. 471-473).
S. Glover Lindsay, D.S. Barbour and S.G. Sturman, Edgar Degas Sculpture, Washington, D.C., 2010, p. 371 (another cast illustrated in color).

Exhibited

London, O'Hana Gallery, Modern French Masters 1850-1950, June-September 1958, no. 10.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Margaux Morel Associate Vice President, Specialist and Head of the Day and Works on Paper sales

MMorel@christies.com +1 212 636 2656

Lot Essay

Edgar Degas’ bathing women present as one of his most iconic subjects, alongside his depictions of ballerinas and race horses. The artist first exhibited his domestic bathers in the eighth and final Impressionist group exhibition of 1886, where they were deemed scandalous—the artist’s models must be prostitutes, viewers believed, the rooms those of seedy, cheap hotels: "Degas lays bare for us," one critic noted, "the streetwalker’s modern, swollen, pasty flesh" (quoted in The New Painting, exh. cat., The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, 1986, p. 431).
In Femme sortant du bain, the artist presents a woman as she steps out of the bath, one leg raised up as she hinges forward to keep her balance. Although lacking arms and a calf, the bather presents a highly dynamic pose, her bust turned away from her bath, while her face looks over her shoulder as if catching her balance, caught mid-way in her movement, unaware of the artist’s gaze upon her.
The original wax of the present work was destroyed during the casting process. Of the 23 known bronze casts, nine examples now reside in museums, including the Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Gallery of Art, Washington University, St. Louis; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Osterreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen; Museo de Arte de São Paolo and Musée des Beaux-Arts, Valenciennes.

More from MICA: THE COLLECTION OF MICA ERTEGUN Part II

View All