Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) Woman Getting Out of Bath

Description:

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)

Woman Getting Out of Bath/ Femme Sortant du Bain
Inscribed "Degas" in the base, foundry mark "CIRE PERDUE A.A. HEBRARD" and
numbered "71/T" on the base.
Bronze, height 16 1/2 in. (42.0 cm).
Condition: Extremely minor wear to surface.


Provenance: A.Private New England Collection .


Literature: Campbell, Sara, Degas, The Sculptures: A Catalogue Raisonné
(London: Apollo, 1995),no. 71, illustration of another cast, p. 45; Czestochowski, Joseph S. and Anne Pinegeot, Degas Sculptures, Catalogue Raisonne of the Bronzes (Memphis: International Arts),2002, illustration of another cast; Rewald, John, Degas: Works in Sculpture, A Complete Catalog (New York: Pantheon Books, Inc.),1944, No. LIX, illus; Rewald, John, Degas¹s Complete Sculpture: Catalogue Raisonné (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy Fine Arts),1990. No. LIX, illus.

N.B. Degas¹s work in clay and wax began as early as 1865, and by 1880 he worked with it almost exclusively. He did not have any of these works cast in bronze during his lifetime, perhaps a result of his perfectionism as he ³did dream of having some cast in bronze, as he once confessed to Maillol, but he was apparently reluctant because bronze cannot be retouched.²1 Degas never exhibited any of his sculpture during his lifetime, except for The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer, which appeared at the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition in Paris in 1881. Degas frequently used the female nude as the subject of his sculptural work, and in these works he explored elements of movement and form. Mary Cassatt once wrote ³I have studied Degas¹s sculptures for months. I believe he will live to be a greater as a sculptor than as a painter.²2

This work was modeled between 1896 and 1911. Between 1919 and 1921 the Hebrard Foundry cast seventy-two of the seventy-three bronze sculptures that Degas produced. Each was marked with a number (1 to 72) and twenty copies of each, marked with letters A through T, were designated for sale (an additional unmarked cast was reserved for the foundry and another for the heirs of the artist).

1. Rewald, John, ³Degas¹s Sculpture, A Reply to ŒArabesques in Bronze¹,² The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Summer 1946),p. 47.

2. Ibid., 48.


Estimate $150,000-250,000

There is some very mild wear to surface and surface dust. Otherwise, there are not additional condition issues to report.

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