Study in the Nude of Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (Nude Little Dancer)

original wax c. 1878-1881, cast 1920/1926

Edgar Degas

Sculptor, French, 1834 - 1917

A young, nude girl is roughly modeled and cast with bronze-colored copper alloy in this free-standing sculpture. Her body is angled to our left in this photograph. Her weight rests on her left foot and her other leg extends long, the foot turned out at an angle. Her hands are clasped behind her back, and her round belly projects from her swayed hips. Her head is tipped back so her chin is lifted. Her eyes are closed, and her thin lips are set in a line. Light glints off the surface of the copper in some areas, especially on the cheek closer to us and the front of her shoulder. She stands on a rectangular base. The work is stamped on the top of the base in the front left corner, “Degas.”
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On View

West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G3

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    copper alloy

  • Credit Line

    Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

  • Dimensions

    overall with base: 72.8 x 35.2 x 27.4 cm (28 11/16 x 13 7/8 x 10 13/16 in.)
    weight: 27 lb. (12.247 kg)
    height (of figure): 67.5 cm (26 9/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1985.64.67

More About this Artwork

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

(Adrien-Aurélien Hébrard [1865-1937], Paris); sold 12 July 1926 to (Flechtheim, Dusseldorf).[1] private collection, France;[2] (sale, Sotheby's, London, 29 November 1967, no. 14); purchased by (Hector Brame, Paris) for Paul Mellon [1907-1999], Upperville, Virginia;[3] gift 1985 to NGA.
[1] According to the archives of the Hébrard foundry, cited in Anne Pingeot, Degas Sculptures, Paris, 1991: 153-197. Joseph S. Czestochowski and Anne Pingeot (Degas Sculptures. Catalogue Raisonné of the Bronzes, Memphis, 2002: 231) state that the cast left France in 1967. Since the stock from Alfred Flechtheim's Dusseldorf and Berlin galleries, when he closed them in 1933, was mostly sent to the Mayor Gallery in London or the Galerie Simon in Paris, it appears this cast probably went to the latter. Flechtheim moved to London after he closed his galleries, and died there in 1937.
[2] This information was kindly provided by Aleksandra Todorovic, Director, Impressionist and Modern Art, Sotheby's, London, in an e-mail dated 14 January 2009 to Anne Halpern, in NGA curatorial files.
[3] Confirmation by the late Philippe Brame, personal communication to Anne Halpern, 13 January 2003; see also Mellon collection records, NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1978

  • Degas, Virginia Museum, Richmond, 1978, no. 38, repro.

1984

  • Degas: The Dancers, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1984-1985, no. 24.

1996

  • Obras Maestras de la National Gallery of Art de Washington, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 1996-1997, unnumbered catalogue, 168-169, color repro.

2005

  • Breaking the Mold: Sculpture in Paris from Daumier to Rodin, The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, 2005-2006, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 142.

2010

  • Edgar Degas: Figures in Motion, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, 2010 (used as the catalogue: Joseph S. Czestochowski and Anne Pingeot, Degas - Sculptures, Memphis, 2002).

Bibliography

1991

  • Pingeot, Anne. Degas Sculptures. Paris, 1991: no. 37.

1994

  • Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 70, repro.

1995

  • Campbell, Sara. "A Catalogue of Degas' Bronzes." Apollo 142 (August 1995): 38, no. 56.

2002

  • Czestochowski, Joseph S., and Anne Pingeot. Degas--Sculptures. Catalogue Raisonné of the Bronzes. Memphis, 2002: 231.

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. 18, 150-151, color repro.

2023

  • Glinsman, Lisha Deming, Daphne Barbour and Shelley Sturman. "When the Workshop is Fluid: Observations on Parisian Bronze Casting in the Early Twentieth Century." Daphne Barbour, ed., Facture. Conservation, Science, Art History 6 (2023): 152-187, figs. 3, 4 (detail).

Inscriptions

on top of base in front left corner: Degas [stamped replica of artist's signature]; stamped on side of base in rear right corner: CIRE PERDUE AAHEBRARD / 56/O

Markings

FM: CIRE PERDUE AAHEBRARD

Wikidata ID

Q63860806

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