After halfheartedly studying law to please his upper-middle-class parents, Edgar Degas enrolled at the venerable École des Beaux-Arts, the official French arts academy. In the classroom, at the Louvre and on trips abroad, the young Degas continued the standard course of study, copying Italian Old Masters and French classical art. During these years, he developed a superb command of drawing, a fundamental skill that lay at the heart of his 60-year career. This drawing is an exquisite example of his draftsmanship: swift, confident strokes of black charcoal define the position of the dancer, and wisps of white and yellow pastel emphasize both volume and light. Although the work was chosen by the artist as one of the 20 most important examples of his drawing through 1896, the grid lines remind us that it was originally intended as a study. Variants of this figure can be found in at least four of his canvases.
Details
- Artist Name: Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
- Title: Dancer (Battement in Second Position)
- Date: 1874
- Medium: Charcoal heightened with white and pale yellow pastel, on gray-brown laid paper (watermark "Michallet")
- Dimensions: 17-3/4 x 11-7/8 in. (45 x 30.2 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation
- Accession Number: M.1977.05.D
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation
Object Information
Hunt Henderson (d. 1939), New Orleans, by 1938, by inheritance to his wife;
Jeanne (Mrs. Hunt) Henderson, by descent to;
Henderson heirs, until at least 1961.
Paul M. (1914-1988) and Ellen B. (1918-1999) Hirschland, Great Neck, New York;
[Galerie Schmit, Paris, sold 23 February 1977, as Danseuse à la barre, to];
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Loan Exhibition of Lithographs, Etchings and Drawings
- New Orleans, Tulane University, Newcomb College, Art Gallery, 1938-01 to
Early Masters of Modern Art. A Local Collection Exhibited Anonymously
- Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, 1959-11 to 1959-12
French and American Masters of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. A Celebrated New Orleans Collection to Benefit the Accessions Fund of The Isaac Delgado Museum of Art
- New York, Knoedler Galleries, 1961-05 to
Exposition Degas 1834-1917: Catalogue des tableaux, pastels et dessins par Edgar Degas et provenant de son Atelier
- Paris, Galerie Schmit, 1975-05-15 to 1975-06-21
[on loan]
- Fogg Art Museum, 1977-01-27 to 1977-09-12
Taking Shape: Degas as Sculptor
- Norton Simon Museum, 2017-11-09 to 2018-04-09
Redesigned Degas Galleries
- Norton Simon Museum, 1995-05-04 to 1997-06-01
- O'Brian, John, Degas to Matisse: the Maurice Wertheim Collection, 1988, fig. 1 p. 40
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 146
- Kendall, Richard and Jill DeVonyar, Degas and the Dance, exhibition catalogue, 2002, fig. 90 p. 85
- Campbell, Sara et al., Degas in the Norton Simon Museum, 2009, Fig. 6 p. 103
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 1408 p. 403
- Michel Schulman, Degas Catalogue Raisonné Online, 2021, MS-1320
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