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|  | Ballet Dancers in the Wings
1900
| Edgar Degas
French, 1834–1917
| pastel
| 28 x 26 in. (71.1 x 66 cm)
| Museum Purchase
| Accession Number: 24:1935
| | Place made:
Paris,
France | | The four women portrayed in Degas's pastel were not the sought-after prima ballerinas of Parisian high society, but rather unglamorous junior members of the Opera ballet corps. In this drawing, they are shown out of the limelight, most slumped from exhaustion, awaiting their next cue. As a season ticket holder to the ballet, Degas was one of the few audience members allowed access to backstage scenes like this.
Working in luminous pastels, Degas charged the picture with color. Rosy pinks, lemon yellows, and shimmering aquatic blues and greens energize the composition. These are not realistic colors, but vivid emanations drawn from the artist's imagination. The composition is unusual, as the women are organized laterally in two distinct groups, creating a cascading diagonal of figures from upper left to lower right.
| Signed:
on recto, l.l., in orange pastel: Degas
| Provenance:
by 1923 - 1935
Ambroise Vollard (1867-1939), Paris, France, purchased from the artist [1]
1935
Theodore Schempp, Brodhead, WI, USA, purchased from Ambroise Vollard [2]
1935 -
Saint Louis Art Museum, purchased from Theodore Schempp [3]
Notes:
[1] According to an invoice from Theodore Schempp, Vollard purchased the pastel from the artist and mentioned the work in a 1914 publication on his own collection [invoice dated September 12, 1935, SLAM document files]. The 1914 publication could not be located, but in 1923, the pastel was published as in the Vollard collection [Meier-Graefe, Julius. "Degas." New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923, plate CII].
[2] See note [1]. A receipt dated April 10, 1935 from Ambroise Vollard records the sale to Theodore Schempp [SLAM document files].
[3] Minutes of the Administrative Board of Control of the City Art Museum, September 6, 1935. |
Alternate Title(s):
Danseuses dans les coulisses
Hinter den Kulissen
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