Little fourteen year old dancer

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La Petite Danseuse de quatorze ans as a bronze sculpture in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris

La Petite Danseuse de quatorze ans ( Little fourteen year old dancer ) also known as Grande Danseuse habillée ( Big clothed dancer ) is a sculpture by Edgar Degas , which was created between 1875 and 1880 as a painted wax figure. The figure, complemented with real hair, a satin hair bow , a ballet dress made of tulle and a bodice shows the fourteen-year-old dancer Marie van Goethem, who modeled for Degas. The sculpture was discovered in his estate after the artist's death and was later cast in bronze. The bronze sculpture showntoday belongs to the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. There are a total of 29 bronze casts of this motif in museums and private collections. The original wax figure is in the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Further casts are shown in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art , in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek , Copenhagen and in the Dresden Sculpture Collection.

Description of the figure

The sculpture of the Musée d'Orsay stands on a wooden base and measures 98 cm in height, 35.2 cm in width and 24.5 cm in depth. From 1921 onwards, 29 bronze casts based on the original wax figure were made and decorated using the Lost Form casting technique , the surface is patinated in color . This work was commissioned by the artist's heirs.

The dancer stands in the so-called IV position , her right foot of the free leg is at an obtuse angle to the supporting leg . She holds her hands behind her body in the arm and hand position, the so-called bras bas (actually: arms down ), but arms straight. Your head is raised and your gaze is directed forward. The figure assumes an attentive and self-confident resting position, but with high body tension .

The original wax figure was painted and mimicked the surface of human skin. She was dressed realistically with ballet shoes, a short dress, a bodice and a standard wig. The bronze cast from the Musée d'Orsay is less clad. The figure wears only a silk bodice , a ballet dress, called a tutu , made of tulle, and the hair, designed as a loose braid or ponytail , is held together by a ribbon of satin. The rest is not particularly highlighted by the patination of the bronze.

The copy of the dancer in the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam receives a new hair bow
Preliminary studies of the dancer (47.5 × 59 cm), chalk drawing with white heightening, Max Rayne Collection , London

In contrast to his other sculptures made of wax and clay, which were more of a working material and preliminary studies for further work, Degas took a great deal of care. He saw the dancer as an independent work and first made a small maquette (model) of the naked figure out of red wax, as well as six large-format drawings on which the girl appears 16 times in different positions. Naked, en face , from behind, from the side, as a portrait and as a whole figure.

The length and color of the ballet dress prompted a discussion on the occasion of the Degas and the little dancer exhibition at the Joslyn Art Museum , Omaha, 1998. In reality, the dancers in the 19th century wore a muslin dress that covered the knee , as was the romantic dress of the time Fashion corresponded. Today this type of ballet dress is also known as Tutu Degas (long) . Degas portrayed his dancers in such a long dress. The bronze casts made after Degas' death (1917) from 1921 onwards were given short tutus like those worn by the wax figure in the sixth Impressionist exhibition in 1881. Since the textiles of the figure have to be replaced again and again over time, the copy shown in Omaha was also given a new dress, which led to a dispute in the corresponding art circles, so that the curator of the exhibition, the art historian Richard Kendall, justified himself had to.

History, criticism and scandal

The almost three-foot-high wax figure was shown in a showcase only once in 1881 at the sixth Parisian Impressionist exhibition, and it provoked various reactions, ranging from great admiration to total rejection. The figure provocatively represented a conception of art that absolutely deviated from the norm of the time and caused a scandal.

The art historian Gabriella Asaro observes the reactions to the work of art and finds it amazing why such a work of art, which depicts only a simple girl, then and sometimes still today, could and can attract such violent reactions and criticism. Degas' sculpture contradicted the moral code of the 19th century, the so-called “good manners” and bourgeois morality. The viewers of the figure in the Impressionist exhibition of 1881 could well have seen a way to satisfy their own secret desires, fantasies and obsessions. Degas painted many clearly misogynous pictures of women, but this work is devoid of any indiscreet contempt for women.

The critics spoke of “terrible reality”, the figure of the dancer was “ugly”, “puny” and “vicious”. Yet the work of art was also admired and valued, especially by those who knew Degas' painting and understood his artistic intentions. The writer Joris-Karl Huysmans found the sculpture trend-setting: “[...] all ideas of the audience about sculpture, about these cold, lifeless, white phenomena, about these memorable stencil-like works that have been repeated for centuries are overturned. The fact is that Monsieur Degas overturned the tradition of sculpture [...]. "

The critic Paul Mantz asked in his review of April 23, 1881 in the newspaper le Temps , "why such a figure, whose forehead and lips have such an evil expression, is exhibited at all." Other viewers, such as the painter Auguste Renoir and the critic and editor of the art magazine Gazette des Beaux-Arts Charles Ephrussi saw Degas' sculpture of the dancer as an attempt at a "partially novel realism".

Model of the sculpture

Edgar Degas: Classe de ballet (1878–1880), Philadelphia Museum of Art . Marie van Goethem is the dancer with the long hair on the right edge of the picture.

Edgar Degas' model for his sculpture was a skinny child, a so-called ballet rat ( petit rat ). In the 19th century, for Parisian girls from poor backgrounds, training in opera ballet was often the only way to survive. Many of Degas' pictures show extremely slim ballet dancers. In this work, the person modeled by Degas can be precisely identified. It is Marie Genevieve van Goethem, born on February 17, 1864 (there are different spellings of this name in the literature). Marie was the daughter of a tailor and a laundress who came from Belgium. The family lived in poor conditions in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. Marie and her two sisters Antoinette and Louise-Joséphine were introduced to the Paris Opera Ballet by their mother and were given training positions. All three also served as models for Degas, which is evidenced by the entries of their names in his sketchbooks. Little is known about Marie's life. In 1879 she and her sister Antoinette had to leave the opera, so the only thing left for them was prostitution. Degas also depicted Marie in a painting entitled Ballet Class (1878–1880). It is the dancer with the long hair on the right edge of the picture.

Provenance

The provenance of the work has been passed down without any gaps. The wax figure with its textile accessories was shown publicly only once in the sixth Paris Impressionist exhibition , which took place in 1881 in the studio of photographer Nadar on Boulevard des Capucines, No. 35. It remained in his possession until Degas' death in 1917. It was found among the 150 sculptures from the estate in his studio. Degas' friend, the sculptor Paul-Albert Bartholomé , preserved and restored 73 of them, including the dancer . In 1921 the dancer was cast in bronze by the Adrien-Aurélien Hébrard fine art foundry based on a plaster mold of the original and exhibited in the foundry's gallery in 1922. Another 28 casts followed by 1931. The original wax figure and the first cast remained in the possession of Hébrard's heirs until 1955. Then they became the property of the American art collector Paul Mellon , who initially left the pieces to the National Gallery of Art in Washington on permanent loan and then bequeathed them.

On June 24, 2015, the dancer's bronze cast from a private collection fetched 15,829,000 pounds (around 18,836,510 euros) at auction at Sotheby’s art auction house in London.

Exhibitions (selection)

  • La sculpture française au XIXe siècle. Paris 1986
  • Degas. Paris, Ottawa, New York 1988
  • Intimacy and pose. Hamburger Kunsthalle 2009
  • Crime et Châtiment. Paris 2010
  • Degas sculpteur, un exceptionnel Orsay hors les murs. Roubaix 2010
  • Degas. Capolavori dal Musée d'Orsay. Turin 2012
  • Degas' Little Dancer. National Gallery of Art , Washington October 5, 2014 to January 11, 2015

reception

In 2010 the Paris Opera brought out a ballet production by Patrice Bart entitled La petite danseuse de Degas at the Opéra Garnier , which freely retells the story of Marie van Goethem. The occasion was a request from the Musée d'Orsay to the costume workshop of the Paris Opera because a new ballet dress was needed for the sculpture at the end of the 1990s. The opera historian Martine Kahane therefore had the idea to bring Marie's story to the stage. The stage design for this production came from Ezio Toffolutti . The play tells the tragic story of Marie, who lost her father and had to support her mother financially. She worked as a dancer, modeled for artists and worked as a prostitute, which is why she had to leave the dance troupe of the Paris Opera.

In 2014, in connection with the Degas' Little Dancer exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, the story of Edgar Degas and the young ballet dancer Marie van Goethem was staged as a musical entitled Little Dancer , which was performed on October 25, 2014 in the Kennedy Center by Washington had its premiere. The story of a young ballet student at the Paris Opera Ballet is told in a mixture of real background and fiction. Torn between her poor family and the temptations of rich men, the young girl, who is on the threshold of femininity, is fighting for her place in the ballet. Performers include the four-time Tony Award winner Boyd Gaines , who embodies Edgar Degas, Rebecca Luker, who has been nominated three times for the Tony Award as the adult Marie, and the New York ballet dancer Tiler Peck as the young Marie. Lynn Ahrens wrote the libretto, the music was put together by the composer Stephen Flaherty , and the five-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman directed and choreographed.

It is the story of the French painter and a young girl who became a world-famous dancer through sculpture.

literature

  • Martin Raumschüssel: The fourteen- year-old dancer by Edgar Degas . In: Dresdener Kunstblätter . No. 9 , 1965, ISSN  0418-0615 , OCLC 888445882 , p. 107-109 .
  • Jean Bouret, Nathalie Collin, Edgar Degas: Degas . A. Somogy, Paris 1987, ISBN 2-85056-186-X (French).
  • Nathalie Reymond: Degas, illustrious et inconnu . Librairie Séguier, Paris 1988, ISBN 2-906284-83-1 (French).
  • Pierre Cabanne: Monsieur Degas . Jean-claude Lattès, Paris 1989, ISBN 2-7096-0777-8 (French).
  • Richard Kendall, Edgar Degas, Douglas W. Druick, Arthur Beale: Degas and The Little Dancer . Yale University Press / Joslyn Art Museum, New Haven, Omaha, Neb. 1998, ISBN 0-300-07497-2 (English).
  • Nadia Arroyo Arce: Degas, the provocateur. 'Petite danseuse de quatorze ans'. In: Hubertus Gaßner (Ed.): Intimacy and Pose . Hamburger Kunsthalle (self-published), Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-7774-9035-9 , p. 58-63 .
  • Cornelia Schuon: II.2 Degas' little dancer of fourteen years. In: Perception and Representation of Reality in Crisis. Bonn 2016, especially p. 179 ff. ( Hss.ulb.uni-bonn.de PDF).

Web links

Commons : Little Fourteen Year Old Dancer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edgar Degas - Petite danseuse de quatorze ans. Page of the Musée d'Orsay (French) or Edgar Degas - Little fourteen year old dancer.
  2. ↑ Pierre Cabanne: Monsieur Degas . JC Lattès, Paris 1989, ISBN 2-7096-0777-8 , pp. 184 (biography).
  3. ^ Götz Adriani, Edgar Degas: Edgar Degas. Pastels, oil sketches, drawings. DuMont, Cologne 1984, ISBN 3-7701-1552-X , p. 80 f .
  4. ↑ La petite danseuse de Degas. La guerre des tutus . In: Le Journal des Arts . No. 75 , January 22, 1999 ( artclair.com ).
  5. ↑ a b Gabriella Asaro: Degas sculpteur et le réalisme audacieux de la Petite danseuse de 14 ans. L'Histoire par l'image, November 5, 2009, accessed December 5, 2016 .
  6. ^ Götz Adriani, Edgar Degas: Edgar Degas. Pastels, oil sketches, drawings. DuMont, Cologne 1984, ISBN 3-7701-1552-X , p. 82 .
  7. ↑ Pierre Cabanne: Monsieur Degas. P. 184 ff.
  8. ↑ Sophie Cachon: Pourquoi la petite danseuse de Degas a provoque un scandale . In: Télérama culture magazine . April 23, 2015 (French, telerama.fr ).
  9. ↑ Pierre Cabanne: Monsieur Degas. P. 185.
  10. ↑ Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. Information about the figure on the National Gallery of Art website.
  11. ^ Website of the auction house Sotheby's
  12. ↑ Information about the piece on the medici.tv page
  13. ^ The Kennedy Center production of Little Dancer. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 2014, accessed December 5, 2016 .
  14. ↑ Edgar Degas and his “Little Fourteen Year Old Dancer” as a musical. euronews.com, October 30, 2014, accessed December 5, 2016 .
  15. ↑ euronews (German): Edgar Degas and his “little fourteen year old dancer” as a musical - le mag. youtube.com, October 30, 2014, accessed December 5, 2016 .