Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

Cheval au trot, les pieds ne touchant pas le sol

Details

Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Cheval au trot, les pieds ne touchant pas le sol
stamped with signature, numbered and stamped with foundry mark 'Degas A.A. HEBRARD CIRE PERDUE 49K' (on the top of the base)
bronze with brown patina
Height: 9¼ in. (23.5 cm.)
Conceived in 1865-1881; this bronze version cast in 1919-1921 in an edition of twenty-two, numbered A to T plus two casts reserved for the Degas heirs and the founder Hébrard

Provenance

Mrs. Webb (July 1929).
Galerie Stiebel, Paris.
Jacques Lessman, New York (acquired from the above, 1952).
Acquired from the above by the present owner, circa 1976.

Literature

J. Rewald, Degas Works in Sculpture: A Complete Catalogue, New York, 1944, no. XI (another cast illustrated, p. 45).
J. Lassaigne and F. Minervino, Toute l'oeuvre peint de Degas, Paris, 1974, p. 144, no. S51 (another cast illustrated, p. 143).
C.W. Millard, The Sculpture of Edgar Degas, Princeton, 1976, p. 23, fig. 62 (another cast illustrated).
J. Rewald, Degas's Complete Sculpture: Catalogue Raisonné, San Francisco, 1990, p. 64, no. XI (another cast illustrated).
S. Campbell, "Degas, The Sculptures, A Catalogue raisonné," Apollo, vol. CXLII, no. 402, August 1995, pp. 34-35 (another cast illustrated, p. 34).
J.S. Boggs, Degas at the Races, Washington, D. C, 1998, p.191, no. 116 (another cast illustrated).

Lot Essay

Degas once remarked to the critic François Thiébault that he had turned to sculpture to portray his equine subjects because he felt that "to achieve exactitude so perfect in the representation of animals that a feeling of life is conveyed, one had to go into three dimensions" (quoted in R. Kendall, Degas: Beyond Impressionism, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, London, 1996, p. 255). According to Charles Millard, Degas' equine sculptures form two distinct groups: the early works being conceived prior to 1881 and the second group being created between 1881 and 1890. Jean Sotherland Boggs surmises that Cheval au trot, les pieds ne touchant pas le sol is from circa 1880 since it emulates the positions of Eadweard Muybridge's photographs of horses in motion that were published in France in 1878 and which were referred to in a notation in Degas' notebook of 1878-1879 (op cit., p. 190).

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