The Ballet Master

c. 1876

Edgar Degas

Artist, French, 1834 - 1917

Vicomte Ludovic Lepic

Artist, French, 1839 - 1889

We look down onto a shadowy stage with a ballerina and a man in this black and white work on paper. The man stands in the lower left corner of the composition wearing a knee-length jacket and resting his wrists on a tall stick in front of his body. Though his face and head are lost in deep shadow, it seems that he looks toward the ballerina to our right. Up on her toes en pointe, her body faces us but her arms are raised and angled toward the upper left corner of the composition. She turns her upper torso and head to gaze in the direction of her hands. Lighting comes from the front edge of the curving stage and illuminates the man’s pants and undersides of his arms, the dancer’s legs, tutu, and face, and the front part of the stage. The space behind the people is lost in shadow but is marked by strokes and smudges. In the upper left corner the names of the artists are scratched onto the ink that had coated the surface of the printing plate: “Lepic” and “Degas.”

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    monotype (black ink) heightened and corrected with white chalk or wash on laid paper

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Dimensions

    plate: 56.5 x 70 cm (22 1/4 x 27 9/16 in.)
    sheet: 62 x 85 cm (24 7/16 x 33 7/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1964.8.1782

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Janis 1968, no. 1

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Ambroise Vollard [1867-1939], Paris; Henri M. Petiet [1894-1980], Paris; purchased by Lessing J. Rosenwald [1891-1979], 1950; gift to NGA, 1964.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1953

  • Monotypes by French and American Impressionists, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1953.

1960

  • Loan exhibition of Degas for the benefit of the Citizen's Committee for Children of New York, Inc., Wildenstein and Co., New York, 1960, no. 104 (as Danseuse en Scène).

1968

  • Degas Monotypes, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 1968, no. 1, repro.

1973

  • Fortieth Anniversay Exhibition, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1973-1974, no cat.

1982

  • Lessing J. Rosenwald, Tribute to a Collector. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1982., no. 66, repro.

1984

  • Degas: The Dancers, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1984-1985, no. 17, repro.

1988

  • Degas, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988-1989. no. 150, repro.

1995

  • Prints by James McNeill Whistler and His Contemporaries, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1995, no cat.

2001

  • The Unfinished Print, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2001, repro.

2014

  • Degas's Little Dancer, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2014-2015, brochure, fig. 11.

2016

  • Degas: A Strange New Beauty, The Museum of Modern Art, NY, 2016.

2019

  • Degas at the Opera, Musée d'Orsay, Paris; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2019-2020, no. 253, repro.

Bibliography

1967

  • Janis, Eugenia Parry. "The Role of Monotype in the Working Method of Degas--I," The Burlington Magazine. 109.766: 21-22 (fig. 45), n.13.

  • Janis, Eugenia Parry. "The Role of Monotype in the Working Method of Degas--II," The Burlington Magazine. 109.767: 72

1968

  • Janis, Eugenia Parry, compiler. Degas Monotypes; essay, catalogue, and checklist. Cambridge: Fogg Art Museum, 1968.

1984

  • Shackelford, George. Degas: The Dancers. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1984: no. 17.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. Washington, D.C., 1992: 323, repro.

  • Boggs, Jean Sutherland and Anne F. Maheux. _Degas Pastels_New York, 1992: 28-29, fig. 2/10.

1995

  • Callen, Anthea. The Spectacular Body: Science, Method, and Meaning in the Work of Degas, New Haven and London, 1995: no. 49.

  • Fichner-Rathus, Lois. Understanding Art. 4th ed. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1995: 118.

2014

  • Jones, Kimberly A. Degas/Cassat. Exh. Cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2014: 108-109, fig. 8.

Inscriptions

upper left plate: Lepic Degas

Markings

lower left, in plate, mark of plate manufacturer: H. GODARD / RUE DE LA HUCHETTE 27 / PARIS [printed upside down and in reverse]; a negative iteration of the same manufacturer's mark is visible at the upper right corner of the composition.

Wikidata ID

Q65508220

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