Little Dancer Aged Fourteen

plaster cast possibly 1920/1921, after original wax modelled 1878-1881

Edgar Degas

Sculptor, French, 1834 - 1917

This sculpture is of a young girl in a ballet costume standing before us with her hands clasped behind her lower back, her head tipped back, and her chin thrust forward. The skin of her face, arms, chest, and legs are covered in bronze-brown wax, and her body faces us in this photograph. The sleeveless, putty-gray bodice of her costume fits tightly above a layered, fabric, pale, tea-brown tutu, and she wears ballet shoes. Her hair is pulled back but bangs sweep across her forehead, brushing her nearly closed, heavy eyelids. Her lips are slightly parted, and light catches the broad planes of her cheekbones. Her shoulders are drawn back by her pose, holding her hands behind her with arms straight, and her hips jut slightly forward. She stands with her right foot extended in front of her, with both feet turned out, parallel to each other. She stands on a square, wood platform.

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On View

West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G3

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    painted plaster, fabric, metal armature, on plaster base

  • Credit Line

    Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

  • Dimensions

    overall (without base): 99.4 x 35 x 35.8 cm (39 1/8 x 13 3/4 x 14 1/8 in.)
    base: 5.9 x 49.4 x 50.4 cm (2 5/16 x 19 7/16 x 19 13/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1985.64.62

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Technical Notes

Video:  Photographing "Little Dancer"

Lee Ewing, National Gallery of Art photographer, explores the challenges of photographing Edgar Degas’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen.

Scholarly Article:  Original State

Scholarly Article:  History of the Project

Four light-skinned ballerinas with russet-orange hair tied back in buns adjust the straps of their bodices as they gather close together, their bodies and wide, knee-length tutus taking up the left half of this horizontal painting. The background or backdrop beyond them shows a grove of deep green trees to our left and a sunset view of meadows leading back to trees to our right. Three of the dancers stand in a row that extends from the lower left corner to our right and away from us. All three wear rust-orange bodices over tutus that are painted loosely with flecks of pale celery green and buttercup yellow against a muted royal-blue background. Their bodices and upper bodies are outlined with black. The woman closest to us stands with her body angled to our right. Her face turns away as she looks to her left and adjusts that shoulder strap. The two dancers farther from us stand with their backs to us, their bodies angled away from us to our left. The middle dancer looks back over her right shoulder as she lifts the other elbow to adjust that strap. The third dancer in the row holds both hands to her right strap as she looks off into the distance, to our left. The fourth ballerina, to our far left beyond this trio, stands with the arm we can see, her left, lifted with her hand held high as she looks off to our right. Her bodice is a brighter carrot orange, and is more loosely painted. The green foliage behind the dancers extends off the top edge of the painting. The pale sage-green field to the right stretches before puffy, rounded trees daubed with mauve-pink highlights. The coral-pink and golden yellow sky is streaked with lavender-gray clouds. The artist signed his name in red paint with tiny, almost illegible letters in the lower right corner, “Degas.”

Scholarly Article:  Degas's Dancers

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(A.-A. Hébrard, Paris);[1] sold to (M. Knoedler & Company, New York); given or sold 1956 to John Rewald [1912-1994], New York;[2] sold April 1968 to Paul Mellon [1907-1999], Upperville, Virginia; gift 1985 to NGA.
[1] This plaster is one of two produced at the Hébrard foundry in connection with the casting of the original wax sculpture, also in the NGA collection (1999.80.28).
[2] Rewald merely states in his bill of sale to Mr. Mellon that he "obtained" the plaster from Knoedler; see NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1999

  • An Enduring Legacy: Masterpieces from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1999-2000, as Dressed Ballet Dancer (Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans), no cat.

Bibliography

1976

  • Millard, Charles W. The Sculpture of Edgar Degas. Princeton, 1976: 34 n. 41.

1979

  • Failing, Patricia. "The Degas bronzes Degas never knew." Art News (April 1979): 38+.

1990

  • Rewald, John. Degas's Complete Sculpture: Catalogue Raisonné. San Francisco, 1990: 79, repro.

1991

  • Pingeot, Anne. Degas Sculptures. Paris, 1991: no. 73.

  • Gingold, Diane J., and Elizabeth A.C. Weil. The Corporate Patron. New York, 1991: 109, color repro.

1994

  • Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 67, repro.

1995

  • Campbell, Sara. "A Catalogue of Degas' Bronzes." Apollo 142 (August 1995): 10-48, 46-47.

  • Barbour, Daphne. "Degas's 'Little Dancer': Not Just a Study in the Nude." Art Journal 54 (Summer 1995): 28+, repro.

1997

  • Henderson, Anne. "Portraits & Personalities." Washington Parent (November 1997): 14, repro.

1998

  • Hargrove, June. "Degas's 'Little 14-year-old Dancer:' Madonna of the Third Republic?" Sculpture Journal 2 (1998): 97-105, repro.

  • Hargrove, June. "Degas's 'Little Dancer' in the World of Pantomime." Apollo 147, no. 432 (February 1998): 15-21, repro.

  • Beale, Arthur. "Little Dancer Aged Fourteen: The Search for the Lost Modèle." In Richard Kendall, with contributions by Douglas W. Druick and Arthur Beale. Degas and the Little Dancer. Exh. cat. Josyln Art Museum, Omaha. New Haven and London, 1998: 104-108, figs. 77, 78, 80 (radiograph), 82, 85.

2002

  • Czestochowski, Joseph S., and Anne Pingeot. Degas--Sculptures. Catalogue Raisonné of the Bronzes. Memphis, 2002: 267.

2009

  • Campbell, Sara, et al. Degas in the Norton Simon Museum: Nineteenth-Century Art. New Haven, 2009: 50-67.

2010

  • Lindsay, Suzanne Glover, Daphne S. Barbour, and Shelley G. Sturman. Edgar Degas Sculpture. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2010: no. 16, 138-143, color repro.

2017

  • Dickerson III, C.D. "The Sculpture Collection: Shaping a Vision, Expanding a Legacy." _ National Gallery of Art Bulletin_ 56 (Spring 2017): 10, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q63860801

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