Edgar Degas

Estate of the artist (2e vente, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, December 11-13, 1918, lot 63)
Charles Comiot, Paris
Yolande Mazuc, Caracas
Wildenstein & Co., New York (acquired from the above in 1947)
Mr. and Mrs. Morris Sprayregen, Atlanta (by 1956)
Mr. and Mrs. Matt Friedlander (sold: Sotheby’s, New York, November 14, 1984, lot 17)
Acquired at the above sale

New York, Wildenstein & Co., Loan Exhibition of Degas, 1949, no. 82
Toledo, Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art, Degas, 1950
New York, Wildenstein & Co., The Nude in Paintings, 1956, no. 29
Atlanta, High Museum of Art, 1984 (on extended loan)
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Degas in Philadelphia Collections, 1985
Ottawa, National Gallery of Art; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Degas, 1988-89, no. 312
Collegeville, Ursinus College, Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art, A Passion for Art: Selections from the Berman Collection, 1989

François Fosca, “La Collection Comiot,” L’Amour de L’Art, Paris, April 1927, illustrated p. 111
Paul-André Lemoisne, Degas et son Oeuvre, vol. III, Paris, 1946, no. 1137, illustrated p. 659
Jean Crenelle, "The Perfection of Degas," Arts, New York, April 1960, illustrated p. 40
John Updike, Just Looking, New York, 1990, illustrated

This picture is from a remarkable series of pastels of female nudes after a bath.  The bather is one of Degas’ most iconic subjects, and began to appear with increasing frequency in his work in the early 1880s.  By the 1890s, the artist (see fig. 1) had become much more devoted to this subject, and depictions of bathers accounted for one-third of his production.  His approach to this subject was one of great intensity and intimacy, and these images were more richly colored than any of his other compositions.  The present work, which was executed in around 1893, presents a bather leaning against her tub and drying her feet.  Degas executed several versions of the same pose (Lemoisne 917; 1136, see fig. 2; 1150; 1380 to 1384 and 1421), rendering the model from different vantage points in the room.  In the present work, the view appears to be from slightly above the figure, an angle that accentuates the broad expanse of her back.  Repeatedly drawing a given subject allowed Degas to study the pose from different angles and to gain a better understanding of the beauty and complexity of human anatomy.   Speaking of his method, Degas once remarked, “Make a drawing, begin it again, trace it; begin it again, and trace it again” (Paul Lafond, Degas, Paris, 1918, vol. I, p. 20).

 

Unlike his pictures of the ballet and the racetrack, these bather scenes were usually staged in the artist’s studio since he could not readily observe this intimate ritual under normal circumstances.  Nevertheless, this pastel effectively recreates the spontaneity of the act and the voyeuristic experience of watching a woman at her toilette.  To create a sensation of warmth in the room after the bath, Degas uses rich pastels of reds and oranges.   In actuality, the studio in which Degas rendered these pictures was usually very cold, and his models often complained about the temperature as they posed for hours, sometimes dripping with water.  None of that discomfort comes across in this picture, and the bather appears to be very much at ease.  Degas has positioned her on what appears to be a lush, oriental rug and beside some sort of dressing gown, which the viewer anticipates will envelope her after she has completed drying herself.  In similar compositions, Degas rendered the bather in the presence of another female attendant (see fig. 3), as if to add a sense of propriety to the scene.  But here, the bather is depicted alone and at close view, and the intimacy of the image is undeniable.

 

This work is a wonderful example of Degas' mastery of pastel, the medium that would dominate his oeuvre during the last decades of his life. By the time that he rendered this picture, his approach to the subject of the bather had become bolder and more confident than demonstrated in his compositions from the 1880s (see fig. 4), and he employed the medium of pastel with a greater sense of spontaneity. Much like the crosshatching color techniques of the old masters, Degas emphasized the interlacing and layering of strokes in these late pastels, resulting in the zigzagged and striated appearance of the present work. Because of the artist's increasing problems with his eyesight, he found that pastel, like charcoal, was easier to manipulate than oil.

 

Anne F. Maheux has discussed the artist’s use of pastel, and the process that he developed to render his compositions with a richness that was unparalleled by artists of his generation.  She writes, “Degas' restless experimentation with combined media eventually evolved into a purer pastel technique, comprised of vigorously hatched, interpenetrating layers of colors that, according to Rouart, were due to his weakening eyesight.  The extraordinary textures found in these works….were created by an intense network of bright colors, applied in a spirited variety of squiggles, striations, and prominent crisscross hachures.  This technique of juxtaposing colors to create new optical mixtures of remarkable originality and richness recalls a technique of Jean-Baptiste Perronneau (1715-1783) – his unorthodox manner of laying in shadows with green hatchings – and recalls even more directly John-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779), who applied pastel in parallel hatchings, building thick textures of superimposed layers of pure color to describe form, relief and light” (Jean Sutherland Boggs and Anne Maheux, Degas Pastel, New York, 1992, pp. 31-32).

 

Fig. 1, Degas in his studio, circa 1895

Fig. 2, Edgar Degas, Femme s’essuyant les pieds, pastel, circa 1893, Private Collection

Fig. 3, Edgar Degas, Le petit déjeuner après le bain, pastel, circa 1895-99, Tel Aviv Museum

Fig. 4, Edgar Degas, Femme sortant du bain, pastel, circa 1886-88, Private Collection