埃德加∙德加

Mr & Mrs Clifford Michel, New York
The Lefevre Gallery (Alex Reid & Lefevre Ltd.), London
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1979

London, Lefevre Gallery, Edgar Degas, 1970, no. 32

John Rewald, Degas, Works in Sculpture, A Complete Catalogue, New York, 1944, no. LXVII, illustration of the wax p. 130
John Rewald, Degas Sculpture, The Complete Works, London, 1957, no. XLVII, illustrations of another cast pls. 46-50
Franco Russoli & Fiorella Minervino, L'opera completa di Degas, Milan, 1970, no. S16, illustrations of the wax p. 141
Charles W. Millard, The Sculpture of Edgas Degas, Princeton, 1976, no. 69, illustration of the wax
John Rewald, Degas's Complete Sculpture, Catalogue Raisonné, San Francisco, 1990, no. LXVI, illustration of the wax p. 170, illustration of another cast p. 171
Anne Pingeot & Frank Horvat, Degas Sculptures, Paris, 1991, no. 17, illustration of another cast pp. 42-43, 160
Sara Campbell, 'Degas, The Sculptures, A Catalogue Raisonné', in Apollo, no. 402, vol. CXLII, August 1995, no. 20, illustration of another cast p. 20
Joseph S. Czestochowski & Anne Pingeot, Degas Sculptures, Catalogue Raisonné of the Bronzes, Memphis, 2002, no. 45, illustrations of another cast pp. 208-209; the present cast listed p. 209
Suzanne Glover Lindsay, Daphne S. Barbour & Shelley G. Sturman, Edgar Degas Sculpture, Washington, D.C., 2010, no. 20, illustrations of the wax pp. 156-157

Deep black-green patina. Apart from a spot of verdigris on the figure's right wrist, this work is in very good original condition.
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The fervent exploration of movement is a defining feature of the œuvre of Edgar Degas, and nowhere is his exceptional aptitude for representing the human form in motion more evident than in his sculptures. John Rewald wrote: ‘It was in his passionate search for movement that all the statuettes of dancers doing arabesques, bowing, rubbing their knees, putting their stockings on, etc., and of women arranging their hair, stretching, rubbing their neck and so on were created. All these women are caught in poses which represent one single instant, in an arrested movement which is pregnant with the movement just completed and the one about to follow. To use Baudelaire's words, Degas "loved the human body as a material harmony, as a beautiful architecture with the addition of movement”’ (J. Rewald, op. cit., 1990, p. 23).

 

Discussing the pose of the dancer in the present work, Suzanne Glover Lindsay wrote: ‘This figure’s “Spanish” pose is not easily identified with dance movements or poses in the Spanish repertory. It suggests a hybrid of French ballet and Spanish dance, with a Spanish “feel”. The arm position resembles forms in both dance types, but the complex posture departs from the ones of classical dance. […] The open thumbs and curled fingers evoked by the well-articulated, fragmentary hands suggest they hold castanets. […] By Degas’ time, both dance types had been evolving for decades, especially in Paris, where he probably saw Spanish dance before traveling to Spain in 1889. His views of the latter probably derived from French adaptations, often inspired by Spanish troupes that began touring Europe in the 1830s to great applause, motivating European classical dancers and choreographers to appropriate elements. […] The figure type and handling are similar to those of Little Dancer Aged Fourteen and the nude variant [fig. 2]’ (S.G. Lindsay in S.G. Lindsay, D.S. Barbour & S.G. Sturman, op. cit., pp. 159-160).

 

The original wax model of Danse espagnole is in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; a number of bronze casts are in international museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Tate Gallery in London, Musée d’Orsay in Paris, The Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit Institute of Arts in Detroit, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen and National Gallery in Oslo.