The Schoolgirl (Woman Walking in the Street)
c. 1880/1881
Sculptor, French, 1834 - 1917
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West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G3
Artwork overview
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Medium
pigmented beeswax, plastiline, metal armature, on plaster base
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Credit Line
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Dimensions
overall without base: 27.2 x 11.3 x 8.6 cm (10 11/16 x 4 7/16 x 3 3/8 in.)
base: 0.2 x 12.3 x 15.2 cm (1/16 x 4 13/16 x 6 in.) -
Accession
1999.80.18
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
The artist [1834-1917], Paris; bequest to his heirs;[1] reportedly given to the Hébrard family, Paris, by Jeanne Fevre;[2] Nelly Hébrard [1904-1985], Paris, by 1955;[3] (M. Knoedler & Company, Inc., New York), by 1956;[4] sold 1958 to Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia; bequest 1999 to NGA.
[1] The artist's heirs were René De Gas, his last surviving brother, who lived in Paris, and the four (of eight) surviving children of his sister Marguerite, who had died in Argentina in 1895. (His other deceased sister Thérèse left no descendants.) Marguerite's surviving children were: Marie-Fanny-Augustine-Jeanne Fevre, unmarried; Pauline-Marie-Madeleine Fevre, a Carmelite nun; Henri-Jean-Auguste-Marie Fevre, an industrialist who lived in Marseille; and Gabriel-Edgar-Eugène Fevre, an agent in Montevideo, Uruguay. See Anne Pingeot and Frank Horvat, Degas sculptures, Paris, 1991, and Anne Pingeot, "The casting of Degas' sculptures: Completing the story," Apollo (August 1995): 60-63.
[2] Nelly Hébrard, letter reportedly dated early 1955 to an unknown recipient (possibly M. Knoedler & Company, Inc.), cited by Patricia Failing, "The Degas Bronzes Degas Never Knew," ARTnews 78, no. 4 (April 1979): 41.
[3] Nelly Hébrard, letter dated 22 December 1955, to an unnamed "Monsieur" (probably Ludwig Charell, acting on behalf of Knoedler in Paris), in NGA Gallery Archives, RG2, Series 2C1, File: 1940-1955.
[4] John Rewald, Degas Sculpture: The Complete Work, trans. John Colemn and Noel Moulton, New York, 1956: 158.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1955
Possibly Edgar Degas 1834-1917: Original Wax Sculptures, M. Knoedler & Company, Inc., New York, 1955, not in cat.
1991
Art for the Nation: Gifts in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1991, unnumbered catalogue, repro.
Bibliography
1944
Rewald, John. Degas, Works in Sculpture: A Complete Catalogue. Translated by John Coleman and Noel Moulton. New York, 1944: 28, repro.
1949
Borel, Pierre. Les Sculptures inédites de Degas. Geneva, 1949: n.p., repro.
1956
Rewald, John. Degas Sculpture: The Complete Works. Translated by John Coleman and Noel Moulton. New York, 1956: no. LXXIV.
1970
Reff, Theodore. "Degas' Sculpture, 1880-1884." Art Quarterly 33, no. 3 (1970): 287-293.
1976
Millard, Charles W. The Sculpture of Edgar Degas. Princeton, 1976: 14-15, 33 n. 32, 65, 80-81, 83 n. 46, fig. 32.
Reff, Theodore. Degas: The Artist's Mind. New York and London, 1976: 257-264 (reprint Cambridge, Massachusetts 1987).
1979
Failing, Patricia. "The Degas bronzes Degas never knew." Art News (April 1979): 41.
1991
Pingeot, Anne. Degas Sculptures. Paris, 1991: no. 74, repro.
1995
Campbell, Sara. "A Catalogue of Degas' Bronzes." Apollo 142 (August 1995): 10-48, 48, fig. 72.
1997
Pingeot, Anne. "L'Écolière." 48/14: La Revue du Musée d'Orsay 5 (Autumn 1997): 30-31, repro.
2002
Czestochowski, Joseph S., and Anne Pingeot. Degas--Sculptures. Catalogue Raisonné of the Bronzes. Memphis, 2002: 268, repro.
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. 57, 322-327, color repro.
2017
Lomax, Suzanne Quillen, Barbara H. Berrie, and Michael Palmer. "Edgar Degas's Wax Sculptures: Characterization and Comparison with Contemporary Practice." In Degas, Daphne Barbour and Suzanne Quillen Lomax, eds. Facture. Conservation, Science, Art History 3 (2017): 50-77, esp. 65-66.
Barbour, Daphne, and Shelley Sturman. "Casting Degas's Sculpture into Bronze: A Closer Look." In Degas, Daphne Barbour and Suzanne Quillen Lomax, eds. Facture. Conservation, Science, Art History 3 (2017): 78-111, esp. 78.
Wikidata ID
Q63861747