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Lot Essay
The three versions that Degas modeled of the Danseuse, position de quatrième devant sur la jambe gauche, deuxième étude—the present sculpture, Hébrard, no. 58, and nos. 5-6 (the troisième and première études; Rewald, nos. XLIII, XLIV, and LV)—display all four limbs in an instantaneous dynamic of buoyant counterpoint, “notable,” as Gary Tinterow has pointed out, “for the perfect balance of the figure and the dancer’s seemingly effortless control over her body” (Degas, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988, p. 473). The order in which Degas modeled the three versions is unknown; the present dancer is slightly taller than the troisième étude, and 7½ inches (9.3 cm.) larger than the premier étude.
The elevated leg posture, known variously as a mouvement à la hauteur, en haut, or en l’air, with the arms set in different positions, is a key dance movement in performance, and is practiced repeatedly in class exercises. While this pose relates to Degas’s many images of dancers performing grands battements or développés in the second position (arms to the side) at the barre and in rehearsal, “the stark drama of this straight, horizontal projection,” Susan Glover Lindsay noted, “has no known counterpart in Degas’s two-dimensional work” (Edgar Degas Sculptures, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2010, p. 189).
These observations suggest that Degas did not model this pose for its usefulness in the studio, unlike other sculptures he created for this purpose, which he employed as table-top “models” for figure drawing and subsequent reiteration in oil paintings and pastels. Degas must have quickly discovered the difficulty of integrating a solo dancer thusly configured into the complex ensemble compositions that he liked to devise on canvas or paper. “He chose to explore extreme balletic positions only in sculpture,” Lindsay has written, “producing his own counterpart to the dance movement as a fixed stance in weighted, three-dimensional mass. From most viewpoints, this freestanding statuette provides a series of formal statements that yield a powerfully active plastic form in space” (ibid.).
Other casts of the present sculpture can be found in public institutions including: The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown; Portland Museum of Art, Maine; Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; NY Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen and Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil.
The elevated leg posture, known variously as a mouvement à la hauteur, en haut, or en l’air, with the arms set in different positions, is a key dance movement in performance, and is practiced repeatedly in class exercises. While this pose relates to Degas’s many images of dancers performing grands battements or développés in the second position (arms to the side) at the barre and in rehearsal, “the stark drama of this straight, horizontal projection,” Susan Glover Lindsay noted, “has no known counterpart in Degas’s two-dimensional work” (Edgar Degas Sculptures, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2010, p. 189).
These observations suggest that Degas did not model this pose for its usefulness in the studio, unlike other sculptures he created for this purpose, which he employed as table-top “models” for figure drawing and subsequent reiteration in oil paintings and pastels. Degas must have quickly discovered the difficulty of integrating a solo dancer thusly configured into the complex ensemble compositions that he liked to devise on canvas or paper. “He chose to explore extreme balletic positions only in sculpture,” Lindsay has written, “producing his own counterpart to the dance movement as a fixed stance in weighted, three-dimensional mass. From most viewpoints, this freestanding statuette provides a series of formal statements that yield a powerfully active plastic form in space” (ibid.).
Other casts of the present sculpture can be found in public institutions including: The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown; Portland Museum of Art, Maine; Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; NY Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen and Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil.