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86 - Edgar DEGAS (1834-1917) "Dancer, open arabesque on the right…
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Estimate €200,000 - €300,000
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Description
Edgar DEGAS (1834-1917) "Dancer, open arabesque on the right leg, right arm on the ground". Original wax model created between 1882 and 1895 Proof in bronze with a brown-black patina, lost-wax casting; edition of 20 proofs numbered from A to T and two numbered HER and HER D from 1919. Signed "Degas" on the terrace Bears the publisher's stamp "CIRE PERDUE / A.A. HEBRARD", the model and copy number 2/ HER D" in the rear left-hand corner of the terrace Height: 27.5 cm, terrace W. 38 x D. 11 cm; Overall length: 42.5 cm; Weight: approx. 3.3 kg Provenance: Hébrard estate; Galerie Drouant-David; acquired from the latter in 1952 by the current owner's father; private collection. Related works : -Edgar Degas, Danseuse, arabesque ouverte sur la jambe droite, bras droit à terre, circa 1885-1890, original wax, plastiline, metal frame on a wooden base, signed "Degas" in the wax, dim. 29 x 43.2 x 24.2 cm, former collection of Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon, Washington, National Gallery of Art, n°inv.1999.80.1; -Edgar Degas, Danseuse, arabesque ouverte sur la jambe droite, bronze n°2 MODELE, bears the stamp "DEGAS" printed in the wax before casting, bears the foundry mark "CIRE PERDUE A.A.HEBRARD", bears the inscription "2/MODELE" on the terrace, bears below the base the number "2", dim. 28,3 x 20,4 x 36,7 cm (base 11,3 x 37,9 cm), Pasadena, Norton Simon Museum, n°inv. 1977.02.02; -Edgar Degas, Danseuse, arabesque ouverte sur la jambe droite, bronze with brown-black patina, mark with signature, numbering and foundry mark "Degas", "2/HER" and "A.A. HÉBRARD CIRE PERDUE", H.28.3 cm, provenance: Paul Rosenberg & Co, Inc, New York, Mr. and Mrs. Norton Simon, Los Angeles (acquired 1964), Lucille Ellis Simon, Los Angeles, Christie's New York sale 8/11/2000. Other examples in museums: -Edgar Degas, Danseuse, arabesque ouverte sur la jambe droite, cast circa 1920, bronze numbered "2/A", gift of Mrs H.O Havemeyer in 1929, New York, The Metropolitan Museum, n°inv. 29.100.398; -Edgar Degas, Danseuse, arabesque ouverte sur la jambe droite, copy 2/H, Tokyo, Bridgestone Museum of Art, Ishibashi Foundation; -Edgar Degas, Danseuse, arabesque ouverte sur la jambe droite, between 1921 and 1931, statuette in patinated bronze, signed on the terrace on the right "DEGAS", on the back left stamp "CIRE PERDUE A.A. HEBRARD", engraved below the stamp "2/P", engraved inside "2", H. 28,2 x W. 43 x D. 21 cm; wds. 3.3 kg, Paris, Musée d'Orsay, n°inv.RF 2067; -Edgar Degas, Danseuse, arabesque ouverte sur la jambe droite, bronze statuette, signed "Degas", bears the founder's mark and the number "2/R "H. 27 cm, Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, n°inv. 2672. Bibliography: -Joseph S. Czestochowski, Anne Pingeot, Degas Sculptures. Catalogue raisonné of the Bronzes, Memphis, 2002, our copy listed as "unlocated" and listed under n°2 HER D, p.125. Related literature: -John Rewald, Degas, Works in Sculpture, A Complete Catalogue, New York, 1944, p. 24, no. XLI , another illustrated copy, p. 96; -John Rewald, Degas Sculpture, London, 1957, no. XLI, another illustrated copy p. 152; - Franco Russoli & Fiorella Minervino, L'opera completa di Degas, Milan, 1970, no. S3, the illustrated wax, p. 140; -Degas Scultore, cat. exp. held at the Centro Mostre di Firenze Palazzo Strozzi from 16 April to 15 June 1986, Mazzotta, p.101 and p.173 ; -John Rewald, Degas's Complete Sculpture, Catalogue Raisonné, San Francisco, 1990, no. XLI, the illustrated wax on p. 120, another illustrated proof on p. 121; -Ss dir Bruno Gaudichon et Catherine Chevillot, Degas Sculpteur, cat. exp, Roubaix, La Piscine-musée d'art et d'industrie André Diligent, 8 October 2010-15 January 2011, Paris, Gallimard, 2010, copy 2/P illustrated under no. 98 p.175; -Sara Campbell, Richard Kendall, Daphne Barbour, Shelley Sturman, Degas in the Norton Simon Museum, Ninetheenth-century art, volume II , Norton Simon Foundation, 2009, N°69 model, pp.362-364; -Ss dir. Suzanne Glover Lindsay, Daphne S Barbour, Shelley G. Sturman, Edgar Degas Sculpture, Washington, National Gallery of Art, Princeton University Press, 2010, cat. no. 33, original wax, pp. 213-215; -Gregory Hedberg, The Degas Plasters: Groundbreaking Revelations about Degas' Sculpture and the Hébrard Bronzes, Stuttgart, Arnoldsche, 2023, pp.107-109. For Edgar Degas, dance was a veritable laboratory of movement. He interpreted the theme in two and three dimensions, until in his series of arabesques he found a kind of ideal sculptural phrase. From the 1880s onwards, ballerinas became an almost exclusive motif. Observed both in the foyer of the Opéra and in the studio, he captured in these ephemeral moments the moment when effort appears beneath grace. For the artist, the dancer is less an anecdotal or picturesque subject than a study device. She allows him to explore the body in action, the controlled imbalances, the muscular tensions that build a veritable living architecture. His small wax sketches are a direct result of this analytical approach: Degas modelled first and foremost for himself, without any exhibition or commercial aim, extending into space the research carried out on the motif of dancers in painting and pastels. John Rewald points out that these figures fix the "unique moment" when one gesture is completed while the next is being prepared, placing the sculpture in a constant tension between immobility and internal dynamics. From this point of view, Degas's fascination with dance is part of a broader reflection on the body as material harmony, an architecture stretched by gesture rather than a smooth, abstract ideal. The arabesque, far from the spectacular virtuosity of the stage, became the privileged motif of this investigation: a pose that is held and fragile, where the artist scrutinises the intimate mechanics of imbalance, the effort stretched beneath grace: the sculpture seems ready to come to life. In Danseuse, arabesque ouverte sur la jambe droite, bras droit à terre (Dancer, open arabesque on the right leg, right arm on the ground), created around 1882-1895, Degas pushed this logic of controlled imbalance to the extreme. The body springs forward from a minimal point of support, while the arm falling towards the ground and the leg in arabesque construct a taut diagonal that inscribes the figure in space rather than occupying its mass. On his death, the inventory of the studio revealed a large corpus of more than one hundred and fifty statuettes - notably dancers, arabesques, figures in extension or flexion - seventy-three of which were published posthumously in bronze by the Hébrard foundry from 1919, according to a contract signed in 1918 between Degas' heirs and the publisher Adrien-Aurélien Hébrard. Under the terms of the 1918 contract, which provided for the production of twenty proofs for each of the different models, plus two reserved series, HER and HER D, originally intended for the foundry and the Degas heirs, our copy is marked HER D. It was considered 'unlocalised' in the catalogue raisonné of Joseph S. Czestochowski, Anne Pingeot in 2002, and had been kept in the same family since 1952.
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About the sale Prints - Modern drawings and paintings - Sculptures - Contemporary art
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Auction time 06/19/2026 at 2:00 PM
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