Ballet Dancer with Arms Crossed
Edgar Degas
(French, 1834–1917)
about 1872
Country of Origin, for CustomsFrance
Medium/TechniqueOil on canvas
Dimensions61.3 x 50.5 cm (24 1/8 x 19 7/8 in.)
Credit LineBequest of John T. Spaulding
Accession number48.534
On View
On viewClassificationsPaintings
Collections
Degas was fascinated by ballerinas, observing them in rehearsal and performance as well as in his Paris studio. This somewhat introverted portrayal, left unfinished at the time of Degas’s death, tells us more about the artist’s process than the dancer. The bare preparation layer of her skirt and roughly sketched contours of her arms expose how he worked—laying in outlines first and then, working in sections, building half tones to model three-dimensional form. The resulting image is both strikingly modern and quite literally reserved: a work in progress.
InscriptionsStamped, lower left: degasProvenanceApril 7, 1919, 3rd Degas atelier sale, Georges Petit, Paris, lot 7, to Durand-Ruel, Paris (stock no. 11441); January, 1920, sold by Durand-Ruel, Paris, to Durand-Ruel, New York (stock no. 8801); March 25, 1920, sold by Durand-Ruel, New York, to John Taylor Spaulding (b. 1870 - d. 1948), Boston [see note 1]; 1948, bequest of John Taylor Spaulding to the MFA. (Accession Date: June 3, 1948)NOTES:
[1] The information about these transactions comes from a letter from Durand-Ruel, Paris to the MFA (February 6, 1964; in MFA curatorial file). Durand-Ruel gives the date of the painting's sale to Spaulding as March 9 but a receipt in the curatorial file is dated March 25.
Edgar Degas
