Edgar Degas

Sale: Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, 1ère Vente Atelier Edgar Degas, May 6-8, 1918, lot 237
Charles Comiot, Paris
Faerber and Maison, London
Acquired from the above circa 1965

 

 

Paris, Orangerie aux Tuileries, Degas, 1937, no. 174
Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Degas, 1948, no. 120
Bern, Kunstmuseum, Degas, 1951-52, no. 112
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Private Collection of Edgar Degas, 1997, fig. 121, illustrated in color in the catalogue
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum; Edgar Degas, Photographer, 1998-99, fig. 26, illustrated in the catalogue

Paul André Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre, Paris, 1964, vol. III, no. 1232
F. Fosca, 'La Collection Comiot' in L'Amour de l'Art, Paris, 1927, p. 112
Malcolm Daniel, Edgar Degas, Photographer, New York, 1998, fig. 26, p.41 (illustrated)

The work is in good condition. The artwork is a pastel on paper which has been mounted to a secondary acidic pulpboard support. There is evidence of a previous repair in the area of the bather's left thigh with varnish residue over the pastel medium and in the area to the right of the bather's buttocks at the back of the chair. These repairs appear not be recent and may possibly have been done during Degas' lifetime.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

No other subjects in Degas' oeuvre are as visually enticing and seductive as his bathers.   These voyeuristic scenes of nude women, pampering themselves at their toilettes, have earned their place among the most desirable images in the history of modern art.   At the turn of the century, Degas devoted his production almost exclusively to these intimate depictions so that he could study the contours of the female form at close proximity.  Many of the models for these compositions were the young dancers from the ballet, who were now invited to pose for long hours in the drafty confines of Degas' studio.  No matter how strenuous these sessions were for his models, their discomfort is never evident in these depictions.  In this sensuous pastel from circa 1895, Degas depicts the nude in the intimate act of drying and stretching herself after her bath.  The pose accentuates the elongation of the figure's spine and the suppleness of her flesh, and the colors he has selected imbue the atmosphere with a sense of warmth.

"There are two remarkable instances in which strikingly idiosyncratic photographs informed Degas's paintings and pastels of the late 1890s.  In both case, the link between the photographic source and the works in other media is indisputable, but the photographs themselves have been the subject of much debate concerning authorship, provenance, dating and technique.  An extraordinary nude study in the collection of the Getty Museum (Fig. 1) served at the basis for one of Degas's major late canvases, After the Bath (Fig 2), painted about 1896, and for several smaller studies of the same date in pastel and charcoal (the present work).  Degas's friend Georges Jeanniott witnessed the artist posing a model in this very position: 'I saw him with a model, trying to pose her in the movement of drying herself while leaning on the high padded back of the chair covered with a bathrobe.  This movement is complicated.  The woman being shown from the back, you see her shoulder blades, but the right shoulder, bearing the weight of the body, takes a most unexpected shape which suggests some kind of acrobatic activity of violent effort'.... There can be little doubt that this pose refers to the pose represented in this photograph" (Malcolm Daniel, Edgar Degas, Photographer, New York, 1998, p. 41-42).

Fig. 1 Edgar Degas, Nu (s'essuyant), The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Fig. 2  Edgar Degas, Après le bain, Femme s'essuyant, Philadelphia Museum of Art