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Lot Essay
This tender portrait of the artist's favourite sister was made prior to her marriage in 1865 to Henri Fèvre, which preceded their move to Buenos Aires in the same year.
The composition is completed in the second state with the sitter's facial features, hair, bonnet and sleeve lightly etched and accentuated with drypoint. The fur muff is elaborated and darkened, as is the background framing her pale face, which appears bathed in bright sunlight. Her sensitively rendered expression, so evocative of a mood of gentle melancholy, and the delicate contrasts of light and shade are somewhat obscured in the third and fourth states (both of which are also known only in single impressions), in which reworking and the accidental addition of a granular tone caused by false biting evokes a heavier, more depressive atmosphere. The muff, which is printing so richly in this impression, already shows signs of wear in the third state.
Reed and Shapiro note the resemblance of Marguerite's pose and the similarity of Degas's treatment to Rembrandt's Portrait of Saskia (Benesch 427), the silver point drawing from 1633, as well as to his etching Head of a Woman (Bartsch, Hind 153; New Hollstein 162/first state) circa 1637, both of which Degas would probably have known at least in reproduction. They also point to Delacroix's small etching Madame Frédéric Villot (Delteil 33), 1833, an impression of which the artist is known to have owned.
The present lot is the only documented example of the second state, and had not been located until recently. It was known from an illustration in Loys Delteil's catalogue raisonné published in 1919, as well as from a heliogravure reproduction which was discovered in the artist's studio after his death. Delteil cites this impression as having belonged to the publisher, printer and gallerist Michel Manzi (1849-1915), who developed a successful method of photo-etching which he used to publish albums of high quality fine art reproductions, including drawings by Degas. From the existence of the heliogravure it seems plausible that Degas gave the etching to Manzi for the purpose of reproduction, and that it remained in his possession after the artist's death. The print was then very likely purchased at Manzi's estate sale in 1919 by the artist's niece, Marguerite's daughter Jeanne Fèvre, whom Delteil also cites as a previous owner, and who looked after the artist in his old age, writing a celebrated account of his life, Mon oncle Degas (Pierre Callier, Geneva, 1949).
The composition is completed in the second state with the sitter's facial features, hair, bonnet and sleeve lightly etched and accentuated with drypoint. The fur muff is elaborated and darkened, as is the background framing her pale face, which appears bathed in bright sunlight. Her sensitively rendered expression, so evocative of a mood of gentle melancholy, and the delicate contrasts of light and shade are somewhat obscured in the third and fourth states (both of which are also known only in single impressions), in which reworking and the accidental addition of a granular tone caused by false biting evokes a heavier, more depressive atmosphere. The muff, which is printing so richly in this impression, already shows signs of wear in the third state.
Reed and Shapiro note the resemblance of Marguerite's pose and the similarity of Degas's treatment to Rembrandt's Portrait of Saskia (Benesch 427), the silver point drawing from 1633, as well as to his etching Head of a Woman (Bartsch, Hind 153; New Hollstein 162/first state) circa 1637, both of which Degas would probably have known at least in reproduction. They also point to Delacroix's small etching Madame Frédéric Villot (Delteil 33), 1833, an impression of which the artist is known to have owned.
The present lot is the only documented example of the second state, and had not been located until recently. It was known from an illustration in Loys Delteil's catalogue raisonné published in 1919, as well as from a heliogravure reproduction which was discovered in the artist's studio after his death. Delteil cites this impression as having belonged to the publisher, printer and gallerist Michel Manzi (1849-1915), who developed a successful method of photo-etching which he used to publish albums of high quality fine art reproductions, including drawings by Degas. From the existence of the heliogravure it seems plausible that Degas gave the etching to Manzi for the purpose of reproduction, and that it remained in his possession after the artist's death. The print was then very likely purchased at Manzi's estate sale in 1919 by the artist's niece, Marguerite's daughter Jeanne Fèvre, whom Delteil also cites as a previous owner, and who looked after the artist in his old age, writing a celebrated account of his life, Mon oncle Degas (Pierre Callier, Geneva, 1949).