This picture is a pure pastel, whose range of textures—from gleaming silk to airy tulle to powdery, gas-lit flesh—Degas seems to have achieved without wetting or mixing media. Two corps de ballet dancers, peculiarly anonymous in their matching costumes and poses, turn “upstage,” away from an imaginary audience beyond the picture plane. Although these women might at first seem caught unawares, like Degas’s many bathers, the elegant artifice of their movements and attire reminds us that this is a performance staged for our enjoyment.
Details
- Artist Name: Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
- Title: Dancers in Pink
- Date: c. 1886
- Medium: Pastel on paper, mounted on cardboard
- Dimensions: 28-1/2 x 15-1/4 in. (72.4 x 38.7 cm)
- Credit Line: The Norton Simon Foundation
- Accession Number: F.1969.05.1.P
- Copyright: © The Norton Simon Foundation
Object Information
[Durand-Ruel, Paris, stock no. 890, sold 22 November 1886 for Ff 800 to];
Henri Lerolle, Paris, still in 1937.
[Hector Brâme, Paris].
Durand-Ruel, Paris].
[Jacques Seligmann & Co., Inc., Paris and New York, by 1939].
Leonard C. Hanna, Jr., Cleveland, by 1946.
[E.V. Thaw & Co., New York, sold 1969 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation (sale, London, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1 July 1980, lot 32a, ill., as Danseuses roses, bought-in).
The Stage: A Loan Exhibition for the Benefit of The Public Education Association
- New York, Jacques Seligmann Galleries, 1939-04-03 to 1939-04-22
The French Impressionists: An Exhibition arranged with the assistance of Messers. Durand-Ruel & Co.
- Palm Beach, Society of the Four Arts, 1946-02-15 to 1946-03-17
Works by Edgar Degas
- Cleveland Museum of Art, 1947-02-05 to 1947-03-09
[on loan]
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1970-01-05 to 1973-04-25
Taking Shape: Degas as Sculptor
- Norton Simon Museum, 2017-11-09 to 2018-04-09
[on loan]
- Phoenix, Phoenix Art Museum, 1969-08-18 to 1969-12-15
Redesigned Degas Galleries
- Norton Simon Museum, 1995-05-04 to 1997-06-01
Three Centuries of French Art: Selections from The Norton Simon, Inc. Museum of Art and the Norton Simon Foundation_2
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1974-10-19 to 1976-06-15
- Lemoisne, Paul-André, Degas et son oeuvre, no. 486
- Russoli, Franco; and Fiorella Minervino, L'opera completa di Degas, no. 524
- Lafond, Paul, Degas, p. 30
- Browse, Lillian, Degas Dancers, 1949, no. 162, pl. 162
- Miliken, W., In Memoriam: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr., 1958, no. 12
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 144
- Sotheby's, Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Art, part one, 2000, fig. 4 p. 43
- Kendall, Richard and Jill DeVonyar, Degas and the Dance, exhibition catalogue, 2002, fig. 198, color p. 177
- Campbell, Sara et al., Degas in the Norton Simon Museum, 2009, Fig. 22 p. 183
- Michel Schulman, Degas Catalogue Raisonné Online, 2021, MS-2383
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