Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

Degas began sculpting in the late 1860s, and although he continued producing figures, mainly in wax, but also in clay and plaster, throughout his career, he only chose to exhibit one sculpture, Little dancer of fourteen years, during his lifetime. Friends, such as Julie Manet and Walter Sickert, mentioned seeing numerous wax models scattered around Degas's studio, and Renoir regarded him as France's premier sculptor, but otherwise few contemporary references to his sculpture survive. The fact that the vast majority of Degas's sculpture was not made for public display is significant, and emphasises the essentially private and exploratory aspect of this part of his oeuvre.

Grande arabesque, deuxième temps dates from the mid 1880s, when Degas's sculpture achieved an almost classical perfection. The slender figure of the ballerina is beautifully balanced, with a high quality of finish, and an unusually smooth surface. Degas almost certainly used the wax model of this sculpture to execute a number of works on paper in the 1900s, for example, Three dancers (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, Parker I, 573), where he seems to have rotated the wax model in order to present three slightly different positions, to suggest the rhythmic sway of an ensemble. He also made a single figure study, viewed head on (fig. 2). By this method Degas was able to concentrate more on the dramatic quality of the pose, than would have been possible when sketching from life.