EDGAR DEGAS | Danseuse regardant la plante de son pied droit (Deuxième étude)

Galerie Max Kaganovitch, Paris
Abraham & Nadia Jaglom, New York (acquired from the above on May 22, 1971)
Thence by descent

Wilhem Sulser, "Notizen zur Plastiksammlung Werner Bär," in Kunst und Volk, vol. IV, 1955, illustration of another cast p. 82
John Rewald, Degas, Sculpture, London, 1957, no. LXI, illustration of another cast p. 127
Sammlung Werner und Nelly Bär, Zurich, 1965, no. 66, illustration of another cast n.p.
Daniel Catton Rich, Edgar-Hilaire-Germain Degas, New York, 1966, illustration of another cast p. 11
Franco Russoli & Fiorella Minervino, L'Opera completa di Degas, Milan, 1970, no. S34, illustration of the wax version p. 142
Ian Dunlop, Degas, London, 1979, no. 196, illustration of another cast p. 211
John Rewald, Degas's Complete Sculpture, Catalogue Raisonné, San Francisco, 1990, no. LXI, illustration of the wax p. 160; illustration of another cast p. 161
Anne Pingeot, Degas Sculptures, Paris, 1991, no. 33, illustrations of other casts p. 169
Sara Campbell, "Degas: The Sculpture. A Catalogue Raisonné," in Apollo, August 1995, no. 56, illustration of another cast p. 40
Joseph S. Czestochowski & Anne Pingeot, eds., Degas Sculptures, Catalogue Raisonné of the Bronzes, Memphis, 2002, no. 59, illustrations of other casts pp. 236-37
Werner Hofmann, Degas, A Dialogue of Difference, London, 2007, no. 208, illustration of another cast p. 262
Sara Campbell, Richard Kendall, Daphne Barbour & Shelley Sturman, Degas in the Norton Simon Museum, vol. II, Pasadena, 2009, no. 59, illustrations of other casts pp. 395-98
Suzanne Lindsay, Daphne Barbour & Shelley Sturman, Edgar Degas Sculpture, Princeton, 2010, illustration of the wax version p. 370

The work is in very good condition. Attractive red-brown patina. There is minor dust in the deepest crevices of the work, particularly around the base. There are a few surface scratches to the base. Otherwise, fine.
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.
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This delightful bronze sculpture reflects Edgar Degas’ interest in depicting movement in dance, a theme that provided an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Degas' models usually performed at the Opéra Garnier in Paris, and many of these young dancers came to his studio to pose for him. Toward the end of his life, Degas became more focused on the dancer than on dance itself, modeling girls in informal positions outside the context of formal class or performances. John Rewald explains: "It was in his passionate search for movement that all the sculptures of dancers doing arabesques, bowing, rubbing their knees…and so on were created. All of these women were 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" (John Rewald, op. cit., 1990, p. 23). In the present work, the dancer nimbly balances on one leg and turns around in a contrapposto stance to examine the bottom of her right foot, highlighting her agility and natural grace, seemingly unaware of her spectator.

Degas had a preference for a limited number of poses that he found particularly exciting, and he often created studies of the same pose in sketches and wax models. The pose of the dancer in the present work is clearly one that the artist especially liked as there are several known bronzes and drawings of girls in subtle variations of this position. Although supported by a bench, the dancer in the foreground of Degas’ painting Danseuses also assumes a similar pose as she adjusts her right point shoe (see fig. 1). As described by Ann Dumas: "Sculpture for Degas was essentially private and experimental, an integral part of the inner creative processes that nurtured his art in all media" (Ann Dumas, "Degas: Sculptor/Painter," in Joseph S. Czestochowski & Anne Pingeot, eds., op. cit., p. 47).

Degas, in fact, only publicly exhibited one sculpture during his lifetime: Petite danseuse de quatorze ans (1878–81), which was shown at the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition in Paris in 1881. His statuettes can truly be seen as three-dimensional displays of his exploration of the human form, complementing his two-dimensional studies on paper. The tactile surface quality of the present work reflects Degas’ experimentation, and Jill DeVonyar and Richard Kendall write that he "energized [the models'] surfaces with knives, spatulas, finger-marks, and accidental effects" (Degas and the Dance (exhibition catalogue), Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit & Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 2002-03, pp. 245-46). As an insight into his creative mind and a representation of both movement and the ballet, two defining features of the artist’s oeuvre, the present work is a remarkable example of Degas’ sculpture.