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Femme à sa toilette
Details
EDGAR DEGAS (1834-1917)
Femme à sa toilette
avec le cachet de l'atelier 'Degas' (en bas à gauche; Lugt 658)
pastel sur monotype
feuille: 31.6 x 41.5 cm. (12½ x 16 3/8 in.)
planche: 27.8 x 38 cm. (10 7/8 x 15 in.)
Exécuté vers 1880-85; le deuxième de deux impressions
Femme à sa toilette
avec le cachet de l'atelier 'Degas' (en bas à gauche; Lugt 658)
pastel sur monotype
feuille: 31.6 x 41.5 cm. (12½ x 16 3/8 in.)
planche: 27.8 x 38 cm. (10 7/8 x 15 in.)
Exécuté vers 1880-85; le deuxième de deux impressions
Provenance
Atelier de l'artiste.
René de Gas, Paris (par descendance).
Paul Brame, Paris.
Jean Davray, Paris.
Galerie Tarica, Paris (acquis auprès de celui-ci).
Acquis auprès de celle-ci par Yves Saint Laurent et Pierre Bergé, 18 mai 1987.
René de Gas, Paris (par descendance).
Paul Brame, Paris.
Jean Davray, Paris.
Galerie Tarica, Paris (acquis auprès de celui-ci).
Acquis auprès de celle-ci par Yves Saint Laurent et Pierre Bergé, 18 mai 1987.
Literature
E.P. Janis, Degas Monotypes: Essay, Catalogue & Checklist, catalogue d'exposition, Cambridge, The Fogg Art Museum, 1968, no. 153 (illustré; indiqué comme le premier de deux impressions).
P.-A. Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre, New York, 1984, vol. II, p. 352, no. 623 (illustré, p. 353; indiqué comme le premier de deux impressions).
P.-A. Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre, New York, 1984, vol. II, p. 352, no. 623 (illustré, p. 353; indiqué comme le premier de deux impressions).
Special Notice
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Further Details
'WOMAN BATHING'; WITH THE ATELIER STAMP LOWER LEFT; PASTEL OVER MONOTYPE.
Among the hundreds of representations of a nude woman bathing that Degas made throughout his long career, those that show her crouching over a bidet are perhaps the most aggressive in their violation of her privacy, the ones that most fully justify the brusque metaphors he used to describe his bathers in general: "The human animal taking care of itself; a cat licking herself; it is as if you looked through a keyhole." (R.H. Ives Gammell, The Shop-Talk of Edgar Degas, Boston, 1961, p. 31). Yet perhaps for that very reason, onlyhalf a dozen such images are known, all in monotype, the rapid, fluid medium Degas seems to have preferred for his most unconventional subjects. Two are small and monochromatic (Janis, nos. 155 and 193); two are larger but also monochromatic (Janis, nos. 110-111); and only two, the present work and its cognate, are more ambitious compositions, extensively reworked in pastel (Janis, nos. 153-154). Although the subject has an inherently sexual connotation, only two of the prints are explicitly erotic; they show a prostitute, recognizable by her long, dishevelled hair, half-crouching over a bidet in a dressing-room and, through the half-open doors to the adjacent bedroom, her client reclining on a bed, apparently reading a newspaper. In all the other prints, the absence of a narrative context and the woman's hair modestly enclosed in a nightcap suggest that she is, like most of Degas's bathers, what he himself called honest, simple folk, unconcerned by any other interests than those involved in their physical condition. (R.H. Ives Gammell, ibid., p. 31).
Described by Eugenia Janis, the leading authority on the monotypes, as the first of two cognates (impressions made from the same plate), the present work is more likely the second of the two, in which Degas incorporates improvements in the composition he has worked out on the first one (Janis, no. 154; fig. 1). By eliminating the 2-3 cm. band by which he had first thought of extending the image at the top (the top edge was originally just above the woman's head, as it is in Janis, no. 153), Degas fits her figure better into the space and makes it stand out more impressively from the background. He strengthens this effect by making her angular shoulder a more harmonious, rounded form and enlarging her head and nightcap, and by sharpening her profile, giving her a clearer personal identity. He also makes her action in this intimate ritual more convincing physically and at the same time more humanly moving. By changing the place of the pitcher on the washstand, he creates greater coherence with the figure and among the objects grouped there; he also makes the edge of the washstand more horizontal, so that it intersects the figures back more felicitously, without the narrow triangular space between the two irreconcilable positions of the edge.
What we now recognize as the second version was clearly executed in pastel over monotype; the strokes of the brush with which Degas applied and manipulated the ink to define and model the body and the bidet are visible. Whether the first version was made the same way is less clear. Paul-André Lemoisne (no. 622) and Engenia Janis (no. 154) describe it as pastel over monotype, but it is not certain that either scholar ever saw the original: Lemoisne lists it as in the collection of Gustave Pellet, who died in 1919, more than twenty years before Lemoisne's oeuvre catalogue appeared; and Janis lists it as present whereabouts unknown. In the catalogue of the first sale of Degas's studio in 1918, the work appears in the section devoted to pastels (lot 244); there was in fact none devoted to pastels over monotype. But in the catalogue of the third studio sale in 1919, that section is where the second version appears (lot 408). The signature stamp on that version is in black, as it normally was for such works; but whether the stamp on the first version is in red, as it would have been if it were accepted as a pure pastel, cannot be determined from the monochromatic reproductions available. The most likely explanation is that Degas, following his usual practice, pulled both impressions from the same plate and reworked them extensively in pastel, the first impression providing an image that could be significantly changed in the ways discussed previously, the second one incorporating these changes into a more coherent, harmonious, and moving composition.
The directness and honesty of Degas's vision of this woman crouching over a bidet, its matter-of-factness and down-to-earthness, has no obvious models in European art for centuries beforehand, though it in turn provided a model for Forain, Toulouse-Lautrec, Rouault, Picasso, and many later artists. One would have to go back to Rembrandt, and especially to his dark, intensely worked etchings of nude bathers in the 1650s, like the one illustrated here (fig. 2), to find real equivalents, both thematic and stylistic. Describing the heavy, sagging body of the middle-aged woman as it emerges from dark shadow into brilliant light, building up infinite gradations with dense networks of etched lines, Rembrandt like Degas transforms a banal subject into one of imposing presence and deep mystery. The Dutch artist had at his disposal neither the modern monotype nor the lithograph, both products of the nineteenth century, but Degas liked to imagine what he would done with them. "Si Rembrandt avait connu la lithographie, Dieu sait ce qu'il en aurait fait," he often said (P. Valéry, Degas Danse Dessin, Paris, 1938, p. 171, from Ernest Rouart). To some extent, Degas's own etchings, lithographs, and monotypes provide the answer.
By Theodore Reff, october 2008.
Among the hundreds of representations of a nude woman bathing that Degas made throughout his long career, those that show her crouching over a bidet are perhaps the most aggressive in their violation of her privacy, the ones that most fully justify the brusque metaphors he used to describe his bathers in general: "The human animal taking care of itself; a cat licking herself; it is as if you looked through a keyhole." (R.H. Ives Gammell, The Shop-Talk of Edgar Degas, Boston, 1961, p. 31). Yet perhaps for that very reason, onlyhalf a dozen such images are known, all in monotype, the rapid, fluid medium Degas seems to have preferred for his most unconventional subjects. Two are small and monochromatic (Janis, nos. 155 and 193); two are larger but also monochromatic (Janis, nos. 110-111); and only two, the present work and its cognate, are more ambitious compositions, extensively reworked in pastel (Janis, nos. 153-154). Although the subject has an inherently sexual connotation, only two of the prints are explicitly erotic; they show a prostitute, recognizable by her long, dishevelled hair, half-crouching over a bidet in a dressing-room and, through the half-open doors to the adjacent bedroom, her client reclining on a bed, apparently reading a newspaper. In all the other prints, the absence of a narrative context and the woman's hair modestly enclosed in a nightcap suggest that she is, like most of Degas's bathers, what he himself called honest, simple folk, unconcerned by any other interests than those involved in their physical condition. (R.H. Ives Gammell, ibid., p. 31).
Described by Eugenia Janis, the leading authority on the monotypes, as the first of two cognates (impressions made from the same plate), the present work is more likely the second of the two, in which Degas incorporates improvements in the composition he has worked out on the first one (Janis, no. 154; fig. 1). By eliminating the 2-3 cm. band by which he had first thought of extending the image at the top (the top edge was originally just above the woman's head, as it is in Janis, no. 153), Degas fits her figure better into the space and makes it stand out more impressively from the background. He strengthens this effect by making her angular shoulder a more harmonious, rounded form and enlarging her head and nightcap, and by sharpening her profile, giving her a clearer personal identity. He also makes her action in this intimate ritual more convincing physically and at the same time more humanly moving. By changing the place of the pitcher on the washstand, he creates greater coherence with the figure and among the objects grouped there; he also makes the edge of the washstand more horizontal, so that it intersects the figures back more felicitously, without the narrow triangular space between the two irreconcilable positions of the edge.
What we now recognize as the second version was clearly executed in pastel over monotype; the strokes of the brush with which Degas applied and manipulated the ink to define and model the body and the bidet are visible. Whether the first version was made the same way is less clear. Paul-André Lemoisne (no. 622) and Engenia Janis (no. 154) describe it as pastel over monotype, but it is not certain that either scholar ever saw the original: Lemoisne lists it as in the collection of Gustave Pellet, who died in 1919, more than twenty years before Lemoisne's oeuvre catalogue appeared; and Janis lists it as present whereabouts unknown. In the catalogue of the first sale of Degas's studio in 1918, the work appears in the section devoted to pastels (lot 244); there was in fact none devoted to pastels over monotype. But in the catalogue of the third studio sale in 1919, that section is where the second version appears (lot 408). The signature stamp on that version is in black, as it normally was for such works; but whether the stamp on the first version is in red, as it would have been if it were accepted as a pure pastel, cannot be determined from the monochromatic reproductions available. The most likely explanation is that Degas, following his usual practice, pulled both impressions from the same plate and reworked them extensively in pastel, the first impression providing an image that could be significantly changed in the ways discussed previously, the second one incorporating these changes into a more coherent, harmonious, and moving composition.
The directness and honesty of Degas's vision of this woman crouching over a bidet, its matter-of-factness and down-to-earthness, has no obvious models in European art for centuries beforehand, though it in turn provided a model for Forain, Toulouse-Lautrec, Rouault, Picasso, and many later artists. One would have to go back to Rembrandt, and especially to his dark, intensely worked etchings of nude bathers in the 1650s, like the one illustrated here (fig. 2), to find real equivalents, both thematic and stylistic. Describing the heavy, sagging body of the middle-aged woman as it emerges from dark shadow into brilliant light, building up infinite gradations with dense networks of etched lines, Rembrandt like Degas transforms a banal subject into one of imposing presence and deep mystery. The Dutch artist had at his disposal neither the modern monotype nor the lithograph, both products of the nineteenth century, but Degas liked to imagine what he would done with them. "Si Rembrandt avait connu la lithographie, Dieu sait ce qu'il en aurait fait," he often said (P. Valéry, Degas Danse Dessin, Paris, 1938, p. 171, from Ernest Rouart). To some extent, Degas's own etchings, lithographs, and monotypes provide the answer.
By Theodore Reff, october 2008.
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