- 339
Edgar Degas
Description
- Edgar Degas
- FEMME DEBOUT
Gouache and peinture à l'essence on brown paper
- 18 3/4 by 12 in.
- 47.5 by 30.3 cm
Provenance
Otto Gerstenberg, Berlin
Richard H. Zinser (acquired from the above)
Mr and Mrs Walter Bareiss, New York (aquired from the above on November 23, 1943)
Exhibited
New York, Guest House of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, "Young collectors": an exhibition of paintings lent by members of the Junior Council of the Museum of Modern Art, 1954
Munich, Neue Staatsgaleire, Sammlung Walter Bareiss, 1965, p. 25, pl. 4
Kassel, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Sammlung Walter Bareiss, 1967, p. 15, pl. 4
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, European Drawnings from the Bareiss Collection, 1969, p. 438
Tübingen, Kunsthalle; Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Edgar Degas, Pastelle, Ölskizzen, Zeichningen, 1984, no. 74
Literature
Philippe Brame & Theodore Reff, Degas et son Oeuvre, A Supplement, New York and London, 1984, no. 63, illustrated
Catalogue Note
The present work is a wonderful example of Degas' fascination with the intimate depiction of the female form and pre-dates the milliner and bather series that he would develop in the 1880-90's. At the time this work was executed, France was developing a new artistic trend, many new artists were emerging and a new wave of middle class patrons such as Joseph Gillot and John Sheepshanks were beginning to acquire pictures with subjects taken from modern life, particularly the urban modern life. Femme debout seems to be an experimental and unfinished composition. Degas creates a haunting image with the stark whiteness of her flesh contrasted against the gestural lines of her skirt and hair. The several positions of🐠 her arm suggest that Degas was playing 🌺with movement, something that he would observe and perfect in his Racer paintings.
It has been suggested that Femme debout is a study for the female figure in one of the artist's most important early works, Interior, 1868-69. It is understood that for his large compositions, Degas would do numerous studies to create the perfect balance. Denys Sutton writes, "The trouble he took to secure the desired effects - figures shown in obscure light, the evocation of intimacy, the concern with the problems of perspective - can equally well suggest that Degas was concerned with an attempt to find pictoral solutions and to experiment with them as much as to comment on states of mind, or to illustrate a story" (Edgar Degas, Life and Work, New York, 1986, p. 81).