1 / 6
bronze statue of a man holding a tennis racquet on a marble basebronze statue of a man holding a baseball bat on a marble basethe statue of a woman is standing with her hands on her hipsbronze statue of a man standing on a base with his hands in his pocketsa bronze statue of a man riding a horse on a rocka bronze statue of a bear on a black plate
Premium BARON, RIBEYRE ET ASSOCIES

135 - EDGARD DEGAS (1834–1917)
See original version (French)

Estimate €200,000 - €300,000
Sale commission
Description
EDGARD DEGAS (1834–1917) Dancer Tying the Cord of Her Leotard Original wax model created between 1885 and 1890 Bronze cast with a brown patina tinged with red, lost-wax casting Edition by Hébrard comprising 20 casts numbered from A to T and two numbered HER and HER D, produced from 1919 onwards Signed ‘Degas’ in intaglio, numbered ‘33 HER D’ and bearing the publisher’s stamp ‘A.A. Hébrard/ Cire perdue’ near the left foot H. 42.5 x W. 21 x D. 15 cm, on a base of Belgian black marble H. 1.8 x W. 22 x D. 16 cm Weight: 4.08 kg Provenance: - Myran Eknayan Collection (1892–1985); - Jacqueline Delubac Collection (1907–1997), by inheritance; - Private collection, by bequest; - Private collection Related works: -Edgard Degas, Dancer Tying the Lace of Her Leotard, model in pigmented wax, plasticine, metal frame, cork, on a wooden base, 43.2 x 20.6 x 20.1 cm, formerly in the collection of Mr and Mrs Mellon, National Gallery of Art, inv. no. 1999.80.4; -Edgar Degas, Dancer Tying the Lace of Her Leotard, bronze no. 33 MODEL, bears the stamp ‘DEGAS’ inscribed in the wax prior to casting, bears the foundry mark ‘CIRE PERDUE A.A. HEBRARD”, bears the inscription “33/MODELE” on the base, 43.2 x 18.1 x 12.9 cm, Pasadena, Norton Simon Museum, Inv. No. M.1977.02.14.S; Other bronze examples recorded in museums - Edgard Degas, Dancer Tying the Cord of Her Leotard, bronze, H.42.5, with an intaglio signature stamp ‘Degas’, numbered ‘33 A’ and bearing the foundry’s stamp ‘A.A. Hébrard/ Cire perdue’, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 29.100.405; - Edgard Degas, Dancer Tying the Cord of Her Leotard, bronze, with an intaglio signature stamp ‘Degas’, numbered ‘33 B’ and bearing the foundry’s mark ‘A.A. Hébrard/ Lost-wax casting’, San Diego Museum of Art, inv. no. 1991.12; - Edgard Degas, Dancer Tying the Cord of Her Leotard, bronze, with an intaglio signature stamp ‘Degas’, numbered ‘33 D’ and bearing the foundry’s stamp ‘A.A. Hébrard/ Lost-wax’, Cincinnati Art Museum, inv. no. 1992.138; - Edgard Degas, Dancer Tying the String of Her Leotard, bronze, dim. 41.91 × 21.27 × 15.4 cm, HER version, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, inv. no. M.2025.64.15; - Edgard Degas, Dancer Tying the String of Her Leotard, bronze, height 43 cm, with an intaglio signature stamp ‘Degas’, numbered ‘33 P’ and bearing the foundry’s stamp ‘A.A. Hébrard/ Cire perdue’, Paris, Musée d’Orsay, inv. no. RF 2079; - Edgard Degas, Dancer Tying the Cord of Her Leotard, bronze, height 43 cm, with an intaglio signature stamp ‘Degas’, numbered 33 R and bearing the foundry’s stamp ‘A.A. Hébrard/ Cire perdue’, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, inv. no. IN.2659; Bibliography: - Joseph S. Czestochowski, Anne Pingeot, *Degas Sculptures. Catalogue raisonné of the Bronzes, Memphis, 2002, our example listed as ‘not located’ and catalogued under no. 33 HER D, p. 187; -Edited by Jacqueline Delubac, *Le choix de la modernité. Rodin, Lam, Picasso, Bacon*, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, catalogue of the exhibition held at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon from 7 March 2014 to 16 February 2015, Actes Sud/Lyon Museum of Fine Arts, p. 232; our work is shown in a photograph on p. 191. Related literature: -Edgar Degas, 1834–1917, Original Wax Sculptures, M. Knoedler and Company Inc, New York, 1955, cat. 27; - John Rewald, *Degas, Works in Sculpture: A Complete Catalogue*, New York, 1944, p. 81, no. XXVIII; - John Rewald, *Degas Sculpture*, London, 1957, p. 147, plates 68–70, no. XXVIII; - Charles Millard, *The Sculpture of Edgar Degas*, Princeton, 1976, pp. 24 and 37, nos. 55 and 68, fig. 84; - Anne Pingeot, Franck Horvat, *Degas, Sculptures*, Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1991, model listed under no. 15, p. 159; - Sara Campbell, ‘A catalogue of Degas’s bronze’, in *Apollo*, no. 142, 1995, p. 27; - Sara Campbell, Richard Kendall, Daphne Barbour, Shelley Sturman, *Degas in the Norton Simon Museum*, *Nineteenth-century art*, Volume II, Norton Simon Foundation, 2009, No. 69 (model), No. 71, pp. 369–371; - Edited by S. Glover Lindsay, Daphne S. Barbour and Shelley G. Sturman, *Edgar Degas Sculpture*, Washington, National Gallery of Art, Princeton University Press, 2010, entry 22, pp. 164–168; -Edited by Bruno Gaudichon and Catherine Chevillot, *Degas the Sculptor: An Exceptional Off-Site Exhibition*, exhibition catalogue, Roubaix, La Piscine – André Diligent Museum of Art and Industry, 8 October 2010–15 January 2011, Paris, Gallimard, 2010, pp. 192–193; -Gregory Hedberg, *The Degas Plasters: Groundbreaking Revelations about Degas’s Sculpture and the Hébrard Bronzes*, Arnoldsche, Stuttgart, 2023, pl. 33, pp. 302–303. - M Knoedler and Company Inc., *Edgar Degas, 1834–1917: Original Wax Sculptures*, London, New York, 1955, cat. 27 This bronze work, conventionally titled *Dancer Tying the String of Her Leotard*, ranks among the most astonishing pieces in Édouard Degas’s series of sculptures of dancers. By interpreting this theme in both two and three dimensions, the artist made dance his favourite subject and a veritable laboratory of movement. His small wax sketches stem from his method of studying bodies in motion, characterised by controlled imbalances, muscular tension and poses in which effort lies just beneath the surface of grace. In *Dancer Tying the Lace of Her Leotard*, tension and effort are expressed through a more composed, down-to-earth and contemplative stance. The figure seems caught in a moment of preparation, before the exercise or her entrance onto the stage: the slight twist of the torso, the tilt of the shoulders; the whole body is silently focused on this intimate, private gesture—captured almost surreptitiously—of adjusting the leotard. More static than the grand arabesques, less demonstrative than other ostensibly dynamic variations, this statuette explores a different temporal dimension of dance—that of the ‘off-stage’ moment of the performance—where the body withdraws into itself in an almost trivial gesture, offering the sculptor a more discreet field of study, one of rare plastic intensity. However, the composition cannot be reduced to the illustration of a mere utilitarian gesture. Above all, it reveals Degas’s interest in the three-dimensionality of the body, the asymmetry of its contours and the nuances of movement observed in real life. The tension in the abdomen, the stretching of the navel as the body twists, the depth of the dorsal groove and the energetic articulation of the forms convey a modelling of rare intensity. A number of art historians have pointed out that this approach by Degas brings the statuette closer to the great ancient tradition of the *figura serpentinata*, revived during the Mannerist or Baroque periods. With less emphasis, however, the sculptor imposes a virtuoso twist combining restrained imbalance, unexpected angles and deliberate asymmetries. And it is precisely this subtlety that gives the work its uniqueness. Upon Degas’s death, the studio inventory revealed a substantial collection of over one hundred and fifty statuettes, sixty--thirteen were the subject of a posthumous bronze edition from 1919 onwards by the Hébrard foundry, in accordance with a contract signed in 1918 between Degas’s heirs and the publisher Adrien-Aurélien Hébrard. Under the terms of the 1918 contract, which provided for the production of twenty casts for each of the different models, plus two reserved series, HER and HER D, originally intended for the foundry and Degas’s heirs, our example is marked 33 HER D. In 2002, the catalogue raisonné by Joseph S. Czestochowski and Anne Pingeot still listed it as unaccounted for. Yet it was carefully preserved in the famous collection of Jacqueline Delubac. A prominent actress of the 1930s and wife of Sacha Guitry from 1935 to 1939, this woman, endowed with a visionary and elegant taste, built up a significant collection of modern art, initially on her own and later alongside her second husband, the diamond merchant Myran Eknayan, whom she married in 1981. From the 1950s onwards, she turned her attention to modern painting and acquired works by Corot, Renoir, Monet, Manet, Picasso, Braque, Miró, Dubuffet and Bacon, as well as sculptures by Rodin and Degas. In recognition of the major bequest she made to the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, the museum organised an exhibition that highlighted her character as a collector and her taste, demonstrating in particular, through interior photographs, how the works were integrated into her living space. A photograph reproduced in the exhibition catalogue reveals our sculpture, situated in the large drawing room of the flat on Avenue Maurice Barrès in Neuilly-sur-Seine.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
About the sale Modern and classical art & jewellery
Auction location
Auction time 09/22/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
You may also like