Edgar Degas

Olivier Sainsère Collection
Madame Richet-Sainsère Collection
Private Collection
Galerie Cazeau-Béraudière, Paris
Acquired from the above

Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Edgar Degas, 1834-1917, 1960, no. 9, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais; Ottawa, The National Gallery of Canada; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Degas, 1988-1989, no. 214, illustrated in the catalogue

Paris, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais; Ottawa, The National Gallery of Canada; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Degas, 1988-1989, no. 214, illustrated

Executed on buff-colored paper laid down on card which is attached to a window mat on the verso. Vertical lines on either side of the central composition which are likely evidence of artist's use of bracind bands during the execution of this work. A few minor creases at upper left corner and above center of right edge. Work is in good condition.
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During the 1860s and 1870s, Degas painted racing subjects occasionally, but in the 1880s his interest in horses, jockeys, and racecourses increased significantly. His dealer (Galerie Durand-Ruel) was in the midst of a period of enormous success; strong prices and quick payment may have encouraged Degas to produce a larger number of works devoted to equestrian subjects.   As a result, in the early 1880s Degas began to produce "closely related variants of a given picture once he had found a successful compostion" (Gary Tinterow in Jean Sutherland Boggs et al., Degas (exhibition catalogue), Galerie Nationale du Grand Palais, Paris; National Gallery of Art, Ottawa; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York  1988-89, p. 402).

No doubt, thoroughbreds, jockeys, and racecourses were of enormous interest to Degas at least in part because of the many ways in which they are analogous to ballet dancers, the dance, and the stage.  Both activities focus on highly specialized training,  gestures, and movements that are codifiable and repeated.  In addition, the preparation in the moments before a performance or race involves an informal ritual that fascinated the artist and became the subject of many of his paintings.

Avant la course exists in four versions, including a work being offered from the same collection in the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale on November 4, 2009 (see fig 1). As Tinterow notes, "The Clark Art Institute's finely painted oil on panel appears to have been the prototype for [the] other panels."  Moreover, he observes that the present work  "is composed somewhat differently.  The figures are slightly smaller and the landscape deeper; the scene centered on the panel, therefore appears less immediate.  Yet the handling is once again rich, fluid, and satisfying.  The sheen of the horses' coats vies for attention with the shimmering shirts worn by the jockeys, the turf is rendered with great tactility, and the landscape is noted economically but convincingly" (Tinterow,  ibid.).  Preparatory drawings were made for the Whitney, Walters Art Gallery, and Hill-Stead Museum versions, but no compositional studies for the example in the Clark Art Institute are known. The current work was also selected by Ambroise Vollard to be reproduced as an off-set lithograph in his 1914 Quatre-vingt-dix-huit reproductions signées par Degas.

Fig. 1 Edgar Degas, Avant la course, circa 1882-88, oil on paper laid down on cradled panel. Please see Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Art Evening sale, November 4, 2009, lot 41.