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    Sale 7562

    Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale

    London

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    4 February 2008

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    • Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
    Lot 80

    Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

    Femme à sa toilette

    Price realised

    GBP 300,500

    Estimate

    GBP 300,000 - GBP 400,000

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    Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
    Femme à sa toilette
    stamped with the signature 'Degas' (Lugt 658; lower left); with the studio stamp 'Atelier Ed.Degas' (Lugt 657; on the reverse)
    pastel and charcoal on paper
    25 5/8 x 19¾ in. (65.1 x 50.1 cm.)
    Executed circa 1888-1892

    Provenance

    The artist's studio; second sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 11-13 December 1918, lot 77 (illustrated pl. 44).
    Charles Comiot, Paris.
    Anonymous sale, Galerie Kornfeld, Bern, 17 June 1988, lot 42.
    Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

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    Literature and exhibited

    Literature

    P.A. Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre, vol. III, Paris, 1946, no. 966bis, p. 562 (illustrated p. 563).


    Exhibited

    Martigny, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Degas, June - November 1993, no. 79 (illustrated p. 133).


    Lot Essay

    Degas' last creative period, covering the 1890s and continuing until about 1910, is considered by many scholars his most accomplished and successful. His constant experimentation and ongoing search for perfection found expression through his unsurpassed mastery of one medium above all others - pastel - and his depictions of bathers in this medium are outnumbered only by his dance subjects. By the mid-1880s, he had abandoned the aggressive and open carnality which had earlier proved so controversial with the public, and his nudes finally met with more favourable criticism.

    Degas undertook the subject of bathers caught during their most intimate toilettes with a spontaneity and lack of pre-meditation that sets him aside from the more academic use of models by his contemporaries. Degas loathed graceful and studied poses, seeking instead a more naturally observed manner of depicting his models as they engaged in their private ablutions. Degas was fascinated by his models' movements, their rhythmic gestures and the unexpected sensuality of a shoulder or the movement of an arm. Degas would invite women into his atelier and get them to undertake their toilette, an invitation the models welcomed at a time when a bath was a rare luxury in many neighbourhoods of Paris. He would ask them to undress casually and leisurely, to bathe, to free and comb their hair, to dry themselves with towels and, in extremely sensual depictions, to put on their stockings and lingerie before finally dressing.

    The present work, executed circa 1888-1892, depicts the model in a very private act of washing. With her left arm extended and supporting her as she leans over the basin, she presents an elegant pose, full of tension and balance, at once subtle and sensual, with a typical lack of idealisation. Degas' use of colour - applied sparingly but with outstanding delicacy - echoes the figure's poise and the balance of the composition. The stunning blues in the basin and its surrounds give depth to the composition and articulate the negative space that is created by the shape of the model's body and arm, while the subtle use of green, applied only to the right half of the background, highlight the delicate and varied nuances of colour in the woman's back and the precise, close strokes with which he traces her form.

    Degas explored the motif of the bather leaning over the same blue basin in several other works from this period, including Femme à sa toilette, circa 1892 and it is in the subtle differences of their compositions and the endless variations of his models' poses that one can see Degas' ongoing experimentation with form. The same pose that Degas employed in the present work is explored in two further works executed at about the same time, both entitled Femme sépongeant le dos (L. 967 & 968), in which the model's extended left arm is counterpoised by her right arm as she twists round to wash her back.

    Other information

    Special Notice

    VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium


    Saleroom Notice

    Please note that the correct measurements are 25 5/8 x 19¾ in. (65.1 x 50.1 cm.) and not as stated in the catalogue.

    Please note the correct medium is pastel and charcoal on buff paper laid down on board and not as stated in the catalogue.

    Please note the additional exhibition history for this work:
    Basel, Fondation Beyeler, Eros in der Kunst der Moderne, October 2006 - February 2007.


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