Alexander and Bucephalus

1861/1862

Edgar Degas

Painter, French, 1834 - 1917

Two groups of people face off in front of a hilly landscape in this loosely painted, vertical scene. On our left, a pale young man in a white tunic looks with eyes wide and lips parted at a group of three people on our right. The young man's right hand, on our left, is raised to stroke the head of a reddish-brown horse at his right shoulder. He stands with feet planted wide, knees bent, and he curls his left hand into a fist. Behind him, a man holds up a fluttering, light blue cape. A mottled red wall forms a backdrop to this scene on our left. The tight group gathered under a tree on our right stares back at the young man. The trio is made up of a balding, older man, a light-skinned boy also wearing a white tunic, and, closest to us, a brown-skinned woman wearing a marigold-orange shirt and a maroon-red skirt. Behind this group, a pair of pale raised arms suggests a fourth person, but the head is missing or has been painted over. The ground under the people is saffron orange. In the center of the picture, beyond the people, a group of horses stands near a green bank by a river, its surface reflecting white. The far bank is lined with white buildings. Tan and olive-green slopes rise from the opposite riverbank under a pale blue sky with cream-white clouds sweeping along the top edge of the composition. The artist signed his name in red paint in the lower right corner: “Degas.”

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 90

Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Degas atelier sale number 1, 6-8 May 1918, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, no. 5, as Achille et le Bucéphale). Dr. Hans Graber [1886-1956], Morcote, by 1951.[1] (Walter Hugelshofer, Zurich); (M. Knoedler and Co., New York) on joint account with (Pinakos, Inc., [Rudolf Heinemann], New York) from October 1956;[2] Lore Heinemann [Mrs. Rudolf J. Heinemann], New York; bequest 1997 to NGA.
[1] Lent to a 1951 exhibition in Bern from a private collection in Morcote; in Douglas Cooper, Pastels by Edgar Degas, New York, 1953, that collection is identified as Hans Graber. Graber was an art historian and collector who wrote on nineteenth century artists including Degas. The painting might have been exhibited at the Kunsthaus, Zurich, in 1929, according to Waldemar George, "L'Art en Suisse," Formes, 1929, p. 263.
[2] Knoedler stock book no. 10, p. 187, no. A6501, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (copy in NGA curatorial files). Knoedler's half was likely sold back to Pinakos, as the painting is next in the collection of Heinemann's widow Lore, who donated it to the National Gallery of Art.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1951

  • Degas, Kunstmuseum Bern, 1951-1952, no. 4.

1958

  • An Exhibition of Works by Edgard Hilaire Germain Degas 1834-1917, Los Angeles County Museum, 1958, no. 8.

1998

  • Degas at the Races, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998, no. 6, repro.

2014

  • Degas: Klassik und Experiment, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, 2014-2015, no. 86, repro.

2015

  • Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art; National Gallery, London, 2015-2016, no. 57, repro.

2016

  • Degas, A New Vision, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2016-2017, unnumbered catalogue, repro. (shown only in Melbourne).

Bibliography

1959

  • Apollo (December 1959): cover repro.

1984

  • Lemoisne, Paul-André. Degas et son oeuvre. 5 vols. New York and London, 1984:II:no. 91.

1998

  • Degas at the Races. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1998: no. 6.

2017

  • Hoenigswald, Ann, and Kimberly A. Jones. "The Question of Finish in the Work of Edgar Degas." In Degas, Daphne Barbour and Suzanne Quillen Lomax, eds. Facture. Conservation, Science, Art History 3 (2017): 20-49, esp. 25, 27, 41, fig. 2.

Inscriptions

lower right: Degas

Wikidata ID

Q20188433

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