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Lot Essay
In a most profoundly personal sense, Degas discovered in the world of dance performance a parallel domain, a compelling metaphor for his own professional life as a creative artist. Peak occasions of grand, colorful, and lively theatrical spectacle comprise but one aspect of the artist’s treatment of the ballet in his work. He observed, considered, and often recorded instances of telling visual incident off-stage as well—in the wings, backstage, and behind the scenes in rehearsal and practice rooms, wherever such encounters caught his eye. Degas modeled in Danseuse au repos, les mains sur les reins, jambe droite en avant not a key ballet position, but instead a moment aside, out of the public eye, ostensibly banal and insignificant, except that it represents— most truthfully—one of countless such passing points in time that make up much of the day in the life of a dancer, an artist, or anyone else.
Hands on her hips, either tensing her spine in preparation for a performance or stretching it after her exertions are done, this Danseuse au repos leans slightly forward, perhaps in anticipation of the next command from the ballet master. This figure proved to be usefully adaptable in numerous situations that Degas explored beginning in mid-1890s. It is closely related to another sculpture (Hébrard, no. 63; Rewald, no. XXII) and to the only dancer Degas modeled in costume (Hébrard, no. 51; Rewald, no. LII) subsequent to the famous Petite danseuse de quatorze ans (Rewald, no. XX), shown at the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition in 1881. This pose appears in more than twenty charcoal drawings, pastels, and oil paintings, which range from simple nude studies to complex groupings of two or three clothed dancers in the wings of the stage (e.g. Lemoisne, nos. 1015-1019, 1149, 1195-1196, 1250-1253, 1445-1449).
“Habitually and randomly surrounded by his sculptures, drawings, pastels, and paintings in the vast rue Victor Massé studio,” Richard Kendall has written, “Degas appears to have moved freely from one object and one image to another, borrowing a posture from a wax model or situating a familiar pose in a novel setting. The commerce between living models and their wax replacements, between space-occupying reality and linear invention, must have been intense. Indicative of the profusion of such examples is the remarkable family of pictures and sculptures based on a single ballerina with her hands on her hips… This haunting subject pervades every medium, in every stage of dress and undress, and in every state of completion, in Degas’s late oeuvre” (exh. cat., op. cit., 1996, p. 256).
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; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; NY Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen and Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil.
Hands on her hips, either tensing her spine in preparation for a performance or stretching it after her exertions are done, this Danseuse au repos leans slightly forward, perhaps in anticipation of the next command from the ballet master. This figure proved to be usefully adaptable in numerous situations that Degas explored beginning in mid-1890s. It is closely related to another sculpture (Hébrard, no. 63; Rewald, no. XXII) and to the only dancer Degas modeled in costume (Hébrard, no. 51; Rewald, no. LII) subsequent to the famous Petite danseuse de quatorze ans (Rewald, no. XX), shown at the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition in 1881. This pose appears in more than twenty charcoal drawings, pastels, and oil paintings, which range from simple nude studies to complex groupings of two or three clothed dancers in the wings of the stage (e.g. Lemoisne, nos. 1015-1019, 1149, 1195-1196, 1250-1253, 1445-1449).
“Habitually and randomly surrounded by his sculptures, drawings, pastels, and paintings in the vast rue Victor Massé studio,” Richard Kendall has written, “Degas appears to have moved freely from one object and one image to another, borrowing a posture from a wax model or situating a familiar pose in a novel setting. The commerce between living models and their wax replacements, between space-occupying reality and linear invention, must have been intense. Indicative of the profusion of such examples is the remarkable family of pictures and sculptures based on a single ballerina with her hands on her hips… This haunting subject pervades every medium, in every stage of dress and undress, and in every state of completion, in Degas’s late oeuvre” (exh. cat., op. cit., 1996, p. 256).
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; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; NY Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen and Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil.