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Edgar Degas

The Schoolgirl (Woman Walking in the Street), c. 1880/1881

Medium

pigmented beeswax, plastiline, metal armature, on plaster base

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.)

Credit Line

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Accession Number

1999.80.18

Artists / Makers

Edgar Degas (sculptor) French, 1834 - 1917

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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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

Degas, Edgar
Hébrard, Adrien-Aurélien
Hébrard, Nelly
Knoedler & Company, M.
Mellon, Paul

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.

1976: 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: 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.

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.