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Home>Collection>Study in the Nude of Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (Nude Little Dancer)
Provenance

The artist [1834-1917]; his heirs;[1] Adrien-Aurélien Hébrard [1865-1937], Paris;[2] his daughter, Nelly Hébrard [1904-1985], Paris;[3] consigned 1955 to (M. Knoedler & Company, Inc., New York); purchased May 1956 by Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia; gift 1985 to NGA.

[1] The artist's heirs were René De Gas, his last surviving brother, who lived in Paris, and the four (of seven) surviving children of his sister Marguerite, who had died in Argentina in 1895. (His other deceased sister Thérèse left no descendants.) Marguerite's children were: Jeanne Fevre, unmarried and acting on both her own behalf and as the representative of her sister, Madeleine Marie Pauline 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] On 13 May 1918 a contract was signed between the artist's heirs and the Hébrard foundry authorizing the reproduction of Degas' sculptures in bronze. Of the approximately 150 statuettes found in the artist's studio after his death, 74 figures were ultimately cast in bronze. The contract stipulated that two complete sets were to be cast, one for the heirs and one for the foundry, and authorized a limit of twenty casts of each figure to be offered for sale. The casting process took at least thirteen years, from 1919 to 1932, and according to the contract, the original figures became the property of the foundry. See Sara Campbell, "Degas' bronzes: Introduction," Apollo (August 1995): 6-10.

[3] The article by Anne Pingeot referenced in note 1 provides details of the role of Hébrard's daughter in the history of the foundry, and its work in casting the bronzes.

Exhibition History
1955
Edgar Degas 1834-1917: Original Wax Sculptures, M. Knoedler & Company, Inc., New York, 1955, no. 19, repro.
1956
Sculpture by Degas, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 1956.
1999
An Enduring Legacy: Masterpieces from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1999-2000, as Study in the Nude for the Dressed Ballet Dancer, no cat.
2014
Degas's Little Dancer, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2014-2015, brochure, fig. 9.
Bibliography
1918
Gsell, Paul. "Edgar Degas, statuaire." La Renaissance de l'Art Français et des Industries de Luxe (December 1918): 376.
1919
Lemoisne, Paul-André. "Les statuettes de Degas." Art et Décoration 214 (September-October 1919): 113, 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. XIX.
1976
Millard, Charles W. The Sculpture of Edgar Degas. Princeton, 1976: 99, figs. 23, 24.
1984
Shackelford, George. Degas: The Dancers. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1984: 74-75.
1988
Thomson, Richard. Degas: The Nudes. New York, 1988: 119-123, fig. 112.
1991
Pingeot, Anne. Degas Sculptures. Paris, 1991: no. 37, repro.
1994
Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 69, repro.
1995
Barbour, Daphne. "Degas's Little Dancer: Not Just a Study in the Nude." Art Journal 54, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 28+.
1995
Campbell, Sara. "A Catalogue of Degas' Bronzes." Apollo 142 (August 1995): 38, no. 56.
1995
Sturman, Shelley, and Daphne Barbour. "The Materials of the Sculptor: Degas' Techniques." Apollo (1995): 52-53, fig. 6.
1998
Kendall, Richard, 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: 35-36.
2002
Czestochowski, Joseph S., and Anne Pingeot. Degas--Sculptures. Catalogue Raisonné of the Bronzes. Memphis, 2002: 231, repro.
2009
Campbell, Sara, et al. Degas in the Norton Simon Museum: Nineteenth-Century Art. New Haven, 2009: 217-218.
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. 17, 144-149, 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, 70, fig. 15 (UV photograph).
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