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Lot Essay
As well as his sculptures of horses, dancers and bathers, Edgar Degas' range was such that he also conceived a small number of portrait heads and busts. He executed at least five three-dimensional portraits, only three of which now survive. Of these, two have been identified as portraying Mathilde Salle (1867-1934). A celebrated Opéra dancer and performer, Mathilde Salle was known to have been of particularly vivacious and gregarious character and was at the height of her career when she sat for the present sculpture. That she was a 'modern' woman who frequently appeared in roles dressed as a man, and who rode a bicycle and played sports perhaps appealed to Degas, for he also depicted her in a triple portrait pastel of 1886 (Lemoisne 868) and in a small painting on panel that probably dates to the late 1880s (Lemoisne 1365 bis; sold Christie's, Paris, 3 December 2007, lot 41).
The present bronze portrait has been dated to 1892 on the basis of Degas' correspondence with the sculptor Paul-Albert Bartholomé who was also making his own plaster bust and half-length marble of her at the time. In fact, Degas' letters suggest that he created his sculpted heads of Mathilde Salle in Bartholomé's studio where the sitter posed for both artists (see Glover Lindsay, D.S. Barbour & S. G. Sturman, Edgar Degas: Sculpture, Washington D.C., 2010, p. 341). The differences between Bartholomé's rendering and Degas' own, however, are remarkable.
Where Bartholomé created a portrait that in Degas' words was 'attractive, a little eighteenth century, noble', the present sculpture has a roughly hewn quality and robustness that lends it an expressive power and immediacy (see T. Reff, Christie's sale catalogue, Collection Jeanne Lanvin, Paris, 3 December 2007, lot 41). Although this work, like Degas' other surviving portrait of Mathilde Salle, is described as an étud or study, here he has captured a remarkable likeness, depicting her with lively animated features, a distinctively rounded face and full, fleshy lips.
The present bronze portrait has been dated to 1892 on the basis of Degas' correspondence with the sculptor Paul-Albert Bartholomé who was also making his own plaster bust and half-length marble of her at the time. In fact, Degas' letters suggest that he created his sculpted heads of Mathilde Salle in Bartholomé's studio where the sitter posed for both artists (see Glover Lindsay, D.S. Barbour & S. G. Sturman, Edgar Degas: Sculpture, Washington D.C., 2010, p. 341). The differences between Bartholomé's rendering and Degas' own, however, are remarkable.
Where Bartholomé created a portrait that in Degas' words was 'attractive, a little eighteenth century, noble', the present sculpture has a roughly hewn quality and robustness that lends it an expressive power and immediacy (see T. Reff, Christie's sale catalogue, Collection Jeanne Lanvin, Paris, 3 December 2007, lot 41). Although this work, like Degas' other surviving portrait of Mathilde Salle, is described as an étud or study, here he has captured a remarkable likeness, depicting her with lively animated features, a distinctively rounded face and full, fleshy lips.