Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

Danseuse pratiquant la barre (Dancer practicing at the Bar)

Details

Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Danseuse pratiquant la barre (Dancer practicing at the Bar)
stamped with signature 'Degas' (Lugt 658) and inscribed 'Mauvais, trop tourn, jambe gauche moins allonge sur la barre' (lower left)
pastel and charcoal on paper laid down on board
12 x 9 in. (31.5 x 23.5 cm.)

Provenance

Studio of the artist; Second sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 11-13 December 1918, lot 215 (illustrated, p. 118)
Mr. and Mrs. Michael Egnal
Anon. sale, Sotheby's, New York, 14 November 1990, lot 106

Literature

L. Browse, Degas Dancers, London, 1949, p. 387, no. 151 (illustrated).

Exhibited

St. Louis, City Art Museum; Philadelphia, Museum of Art; and Minneapolis, Institute of Arts, Drawings by Degas, 1967, no. 118 (illustrated, p. 183).
Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1985 (on loan).

Lot Essay

In a series of drawings done during the 1890s, Degas depicted the young dancers of the Paris Opera learning their job. "Degas studied their movements with the same realism with which, inspired by Muybridge, he was studying the actions of horses and jockeys; they are, as a result, graceless but convincing" (J.S. Boggs, Drawings by Degas, exh. cat., op. cit., p. 182).

Browse (op. cit.) notes that the exercise depicted in the present work is for the flexibility of the spine. The artist's comments on the sheet are a critique of the young dancer as she practices this position; she has incorrectly turned her body at the waist, and has over-extended her left leg on the bar, which pulls her body forward, instead of allowing it the full freedom to stretch backwards.