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Edgar Degas

Dancer Adjusting the Shoulder Strap of Her Bodice, original wax 1880s/1890s, cast 1920/1949

West Building, Ground Floor - Gallery 4

Medium

copper alloy

Dimensions

overall with base: 35.2 x 10.1 x 7.8 cm (13 7/8 x 4 x 3 1/16 in.)
height (of figure): 34.8 cm (13 11/16 in.)

Credit Line

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Accession Number

1985.64.64

Artists / Makers

Edgar Degas (sculptor) French, 1834 - 1917

Image Use

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Inscription

on front proper right corner of self-base: Degas [stamped replica of artist's signature]; in rear proper left corner of self-base: CIRE/PERDUE/A.A. HEBRARD; stamped adjacent to foundry mark: 64/Q

Marks and Labels

FM: A.A. Hebrard

Provenance

(Adrien-Aurélien Hébrard [1865-1937], Paris). Possibly sold or consigned to (Max Kaganovitch, Paris), by 1949; sold 4 September 1951 through (Frankart S.A., Switzerland) to (Alex Reid & Lefèvre, London).[1] Possibly sold to (Curt Valentin, New York);[2] sold 1955 to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York); sold 1956 to (Paul Rosenberg & Co., New York).[3] sold, apparently after 1958,[4] to Dr. Hugo Tesoriere; (sale, Sotheby's, London, 24-25 November 1964, 1st day, no. 58); purchased by (Hector Brame, Paris) for Paul Mellon [1907-1999], Upperville, Virginia;[5] gift 1985 to NGA.

[1] Sara Campbell, "A Catalogue of Degas' Bronzes," Apollo (August 1995): 42, cat. 64; Joseph S. Czestochowski and Anne Pingeot, Degas Sculptures. Catalogue Raisonné of the Bronzes, Memphis, 2002: 21, 120, 247. Kaganovitch allegedly bought and showed a nearly full set of "O" casts in his Paris gallery's Degas exhibition of 1949 before selling the set to Reid and Lefevre and then organizing with them an exhibition at the Kunstmuseum in Bern in 1951-1952. A bronze of this subject indeed appears in general installation photographs of the 1949 Paris exhibition (Dossier Kaganovitch, Documentation du Musée d'Orsay, Paris), although Kaganovitch reportedly also owned the "F" cast as well, albeit later, in 1952. For the discussion of the sale to Reid and Lefevre Gallery before the Bern exhibition, see "Introduction to the Collection," in Czestochowski and Pingeot 2002.

[2] Campbell 1995: 42, cat. 64. Czestochowski and Pingeot 2002: 247, proposes that the D cast is involved instead.

[3] Campbell 1995: 42; Czestochowski and Pingeot 2002: 247.

[4] A cast belonging to Paul Rosenberg was exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1958.

[5] Confirmation by the late Philippe Brame, personal communication to Anne Halpern, 13 January 2003; see also Mellon collection records in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Brame, Hector
Buchholz Gallery, New York
Galerie Max Kaganovitch
Knoedler & Company, M.
Mellon, Paul
Reid & Lefèvre, Ltd, Alex
Rosenberg & Co., Paul P.
Sotheby's, London
Tesoriere, Hugo, Dr.

Exhibition History

1949: Probably [Degas exhibition], Galerie Max Kaganovitch, Paris, 1949.

1951: Probably [Degas exhibition], Kunstmuseum, Bern, 1951, no. 204.

1958: Probably An Exhibition of Works by Edgar Hilaire Germain Degas 1834-1917, Los Angeles County Museum, 1958, no. 103, 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. 263.

Bibliography

1990: Rewald, John. Degas's Complete Sculpture: Catalogue Raisonné. San Francisco, 1990: no. XXV, repro.

1991: Pingeot, Anne. Degas Sculptures. Paris, 1991: no. 28.

1994: Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 66, repro.

1995: Campbell, Sara. "A Catalogue of Degas' Bronzes." Apollo 142 (August 1995): 42, no. 64.

2002: Czestochowski, Joseph S., and Anne Pingeot. Degas--Sculptures. Catalogue Raisonné of the Bronzes. Memphis, 2002: 247.

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. 35, 220-221, color repro.

2017: 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. 85-86, figs. 6, 7.