Cheval arrêté

Details

Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Cheval arrêté
stamped with the signature, numbered and stamped with foundry mark 'Degas 38/H A.A. HÉBRARD CIRE PERDUE' (Lugt 658; on the top of the base)
bronze
11½ in. high (29.2 cm.)
Original wax model executed 1865-1881; this bronze version cast 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

(possibly) Flechtheim, Berlin (28 September 1926).

Literature

J. Rewald, Degas. Works in sculpture: A complete catalogue, New York, 1944, p. 19, no. III (another cast illustrated, pp. 36-37).
P. Borel, Les sculptures inédites de Degas, Geneva, 1949 (original wax model illustrated).
P. Pradel, "Quatre cires originales de Degas", La Revue de l'Art, January-February 1957, p. 30 (original wax model illustrated).
J. Rewald and L. von Matt, L'Oeuvre sculpté de Degas, Zurich, 1957, no. 3 (another cast illustrated p. 6).
J. Lassaigne and F. Minervino, Tout l'oeuvre peint de Degas, Paris, 1974, p. 142, no. S 47 (another cast illustrated p. 143).
C. W. Millard, The sculpture of Edgar Degas, Princeton, 1976, pp. 20 and 35.
J. Rewald, Degas' complete sculpture. Catalogue raisonné, San Francisco, 1990, pp. 48-49, no. III (original wax model and another cast illustrated).
A. Pingeot, Degas sculptures, Paris, 1991, p. 175, no. 47 (another cast illustrated).
S. Campbell, "A catalogue of Degas' bronzes", Apollo, vol. CXLII (no. 402) August 1995, p. 29, no. 38 (another cast illustrated, fig. 36).
T. Reff, "The morbid content of Degas' sculptures", Apollo, vol. CXLII, no. 402, august 1995, p. 65.
J. S. Boggs, Degas at the races, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., April-July 1998, pp. 84 and 85 (original wax model illustrated, figs. 6 and 52).

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Degas first produced sculptures of horses in wax and clay in the late 1860s, deriving the theme from racing scenes he has begun to paint earlier in the decade.

Theodore Reff has suggested that Cheval arrêté was a tribute to Degas's friend, the sculptor Joseph Cuvelier, who was killed in the Franco-Prussian War., and that Degas may be recalling "the finely worked equestrina sculptures, also typically seen in a classical profile view, in which Cuvelier specialised" (T. Reff, "The Morbid contents of Degas' sculptures", Apollo, vol. CXLII, no. 402, August 1995, p. 65).

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