Edgar Degas

Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the artist)

Wildenstein Gallery, London

Sir Alexander Korda, London

Sir David & Alexa Metcalfe, London (acquired from the above and sold: Sotheby's, London, June 14, 1962, lot 19)

Hammer Galleries, New York (acquired at the above sale)

Mr. & Mrs. Lester Francis Avnet, New York

Private Collection

Paris, Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Le Decor de la vie sous la IIIème Republique, 1933, no. 368

London, Thomas Agnew, Degas, 1936, no. 30

St. Louis, The St. Louis City Art Museum; Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Museum of Art & Minneapolis, The Milwaukee Art Museum, Degas Drawings, 1966-67

Milwaukee, The Milwaukee Art Museum & Vienna, The Albertina Museum, Impressionism: Pastels, Watercolors, Drawings, 2011-12, no. 26, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Paul Lafond, Degas, Paris, 1918, illustrated p. 72

Camille Mauclair, Degas, Paris, 1937, illustrated p. 63

P.A. Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre, vol. I, Paris, 1946, illustrated between pp. 164-65; vol. III, no. 1175, illustrated p. 681

Franco Russoli & Fiorella Minervino, L'Opera Completa di Degas, Milan, 1970, no. 1177, illustrated p. 138

Richard Kendall, Degas, Beyond Impressionism (exhibition catalogue), National Gallery, London, 1996, no. 35, illustrated p. 43

Fondation Beyeler, Edgar Degas - The Late Work, Riehen & Basel, 2012, illustrated in color p. 164

The voyeuristic allure of Degas' compositions set him apart from his Impressionist contemporaries.  Whether it was dancers preparing for a performance, bathers in the privacy of their toilette or women engaging with one another in a private conversation, Degas was able to capture the intimacy of these priviledged moments with convincingness and sensitivity.  The present composition features two women mid-conversation, and is part of a series of well-dressed and behatted women whom Degas painted around 1895 either leaning against a railing or chatting amongst themselves.  The present composition is the only one from this series that is dated, and it is among the finest example of among them.  Although the women in these pictures have not been definitively identified, it is tempting to compare them to the women who figure in Degas' photographs from that same year.  Among these select candidates were Genevieve and Marie Mallarmé, as well as Marie Fontaine, whose comportment and wardrobe can at least be compared to the figures in the present work. 

La Conversation is a fine example of Degas' mastery of pastel, which he has applied to the sheet with great indulgence.  The rich tonal saturation that Degas could achieve with his pastels was unlike anything he could produce in oil or charcoal.  Without the intermediary of a brush or the flatness of single tone, he could apply these sticks of color directly and sometimes flamboyantly onto the sheet.  "In pastel, Degas found a medium that propelled him towards extravagance," Richard Kendall has written," using the patient tracings of his draughtsmanship as a springboard to the 'orgies of color' of his final decades.  Fusing tradition with violent innovation, Degas seized on pastel as the ultimate medium of his maturity, uniting in a single material the expressiveness of paint with the spareness and precision of drawing" (R. Kendall, Degas, Beyond Impressionism (exhibition catalogue), The National Gallery, London, 1996, p. 89).

One of the first owners of this pastel was Sir Alexander Korda (1893-1956), the Hungarian-born, London-based film director and producer. Korda's British-based production companies London Films and British Lion Films were at the forefront of the motion picture industry throughout the 1930s until the war compelled Korda to complete many of his projects in Hollywood.  Among his best known films are The Private Life of Henry VIII, The Thief of Bagdad and The Jungle Book.   Upon Korda's death, the picture then came into the possession of his young window Alexa Korda (d. 1966), who married the British society writer and financier David Metcalfe (1927-2012) in 1957.