Danseuses

Details

Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Danseuses
stamped with signature 'Degas' (Lugt 658; lower left)
pencil on paper laid down on paper
7 1/8 x 7 3/8 in. (18.2 x 18.8 cm.)
Drawn circa 1879

Provenance

Studio of the artist, Fourth Sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 2-4 July 1919, lot 137a.
Nunès et Fiquet, Paris (acquired at the above sale).
Gamp collection (acquired from the above).
Galerie Schmit, Paris.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Literature

P.A. Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre, Paris, 1946, vol. II, p. 320 (listed as a related drawing under no. 570).

Exhibited

Atlanta, High Museum of Art, Degas & America, The Early Collectors, February-October 2001, no. 89 (titled Dancer Study).

Lot Essay

This drawing is closely related to the pastel Danseuses sur la scène, drawn circa 1879 (Lemoisne, no. 570). In this pastel the figures are clustered in the upper half of a vertical format, with an empty foreground. It appears to have been one of the artist's favorite works, for he selected it for inclusion in George W. Thornley's Quinze Lithographies d'après Degas, published by the dealers Boussod et Valadon in 1889.

Lilian Browse illustrated another version of this pastel, Trois danseuses à genoux sur la scène (see her Degas Dancers, London, 1949, no. 135), which she dates circa 1884-1886.

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