Fourth Position Front, on the Left Leg
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Edgar DegasFourth Position Front, on the Left LegOriginal wax model executed circa 1885-1890 Bronze cast 1998
Original wax model executed circa 1885-1890 Bronze cast 1998
About the Item
- Creator:Edgar Degas (1834-1917, French)
- Creation Year:Original wax model executed circa 1885-1890 Bronze cast 1998
- Dimensions:Height: 16 in (40.64 cm)Width: 8 in (20.32 cm)Depth: 10.5 in (26.67 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:New Orleans, LA
- Reference Number:Seller: 30-91441stDibs: LU1868229912
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas, born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas in Paris in 1834, was the oldest of five children of Célestine Musson De Gas, a Creole from New Orleans, and Augustin De Gas, a banker. Degas began his schooling at age eleven, enrolling in the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, but after his mother died when he was thirteen, his father and grandfather became the main influences on him for the remainder of his youth.
Upon graduating the Lycée in 1853, at age 18, he registered as a copyist in the Louvre Museum, but his father expected him to go to law school. Degas duly enrolled at the faculty of law of the University of Paris, in November 1853, but applied little effort to his studies. In 1855, Degas met Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, whose advice he never forgot: “Draw lines, young man, and still more lines, both from life and from memory, and you will become a good artist.” In April of that year, Degas was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts.
Evidence of Degas’ classical education can be seen in his early painting, Young Spartans Exercising (ca. 1860; National Gallery, London), done while he was still in his twenties. After 1865, when the Salon accepted his history painting The Misfortunes of the City of Orléans (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), Degas did not paint Academic subjects again, focusing his attention on scenes of modern life. He began to paint scenes of such urban leisure activities as horse racing and, after about 1870, of café-concert singers and ballet dancers. Degas' interest in ballet dancers intensified in the 1870s, and eventually he produced approximately 1,500 works on the subject. These are not traditional portraits, but studies that address the movement of the human body, exploring the physicality and discipline of the dancers through the use of contorted postures and unexpected vantage points.
Following the opening of trade with Japan in 1854, many French artists, including Degas, were increasingly influenced by Japanese prints. Degas abstracted from these prints their inventive compositions and points of view, particularly in his use of cropping and asymmetry [Dancers Practicing at the Bar (1877); Dancers, Pink and Green (ca. 1890)]. He also observed how sixteenth-century Italian Mannerists similarly framed their subjects, sometimes cutting off part of a figure.
Degas had an interest in a wide range of media, including engraving, monotype, and photography. Before 1880, he generally used oils for his completed works, but after 1875, he began using pastels more frequently, even in finished works such as Portraits at the Stock Exchange (1876). He submitted a suite of nudes, all rendered in pastel, to the final Impressionist exhibition in 1886; among these was Woman Bathing in a Shallow Tub (1885). The figures in these pastels were criticized for their ungainly poses.
By the late 1880s, Degas’s eyesight had begun to fail, perhaps as a result of an injury suffered during his service in defending Paris during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. After that time he focused almost exclusively on dancers and nudes, increasingly turning to sculpture. Degas continued working as late as 1912, when he was forced to leave the studio in Montmartre in which he had labored for more than twenty years. He died five years later in 1917, at the age of eighty-three.
Find original Edgar Degas drawings, prints, paintings and other art on 1stDibs.
(Biography provided by Stern Pissarro Gallery)
- Arabesque on Right Side, Right Hand Close to Earth, Left Arm OutsideBy Edgar DegasLocated in New Orleans, LAOne of a series of sculpted dancers created by the incomparable Edgar Degas, this exceptional bronze exudes all of the expressivity one expects from this 20th-century great. Degas captures the essence of his model in the graceful work, as she strikes a particularly difficult pose of the arabesque. The dancer's features have been manipulated and simplified, executed in a manner that seems almost as if one of Degas' Impressionist canvases has come to life. Degas was obsessed with capturing the dancer in motion throughout his career. He rendered their grace and movement in oil, pastel, pencil, chalk and wax - in fact, of the seventy-four wax sculptures created by Degas during his lifetime, forty of them depicted dancers. Seven of these belong to his series that capture the various forms of the arabesque, and the present work is included among them. It details one of the most difficult and animated poses of the ballet. Degas’ dancer is precariously posed in a study of balance and motion, one leg gracefully thrust into the air as she tilts her body down towards the earth and extends her arm forward. The sense of her movement is perfectly captured in the extraordinary work, as well as the fluid lines of her body. The bronze is a sought-after rarity in terms of Degas’ sculptures. Not only are his dancers the most desirable of his work, but this bronze is also distinguished by the fact that it is a Valsuani bronze, meaning it faithfully records Degas’ wax version’s pose as it appeared at the time of its creation. Most Degas' bronzes that are found on the market were cast by Hébrard – these serialized bronzes are surmoulages, or “aftercasts,” that were cast from the modèle bronzes currently in the Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena). Because these bronzes are second generation, they are smaller and far less detailed that the current bronze. This example, however, was cast by Valsuani from a plaster that was taken directly from Degas’ waxes, according to scholarship by the art historian Dr. Gregory Hedberg. These plasters were created by Degas’ sculptor friend Albert Bartholomé shortly after Degas completed his wax figurines. Thus, they record the earliest versions of Degas’ wax sculptures, before they were damaged by time or handling, and before Degas himself altered the works. The Hébrard bronzes...Category
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