Sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 24th November 1964
Marlborough Fine Art, New York
Mr & Mrs Josef Rosensaft, New York
Sale: Sotheby's Parke-Bernet, New York, 17th March 1976
Alex. Reid & Lefevre, London
Private Collection, United Kingdom
Rex Irwin, Woollahra, Australia
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Woollahra, Rex Irwin, Sculpture and the Figure, 2007, illustrated in the catalogue and on the cover

Franco Russoli, L'Opera completa di Degas, Milan, 1970, no. S1, illustration of another cast p. 140
John Rewald, Degas's Complete Sculpture: Catalogue Raisonné, San Francisco, 1990, no. XXXVII, illustration of another cast p. 112; illustration of the wax version p. 113
Anne Pingeot and Frank Horvat, Degas Sculptures, Paris, 1991, no. 2, illustrations of another cast p. 153
Sara Campbell, Degas, The Sculptures; A Catalogue Raisonné in Apollo, August 1995, no. 14, illustration of another cast p. 17
Joseph S. Czestochowski & Anne Pingeot, Degas Sculptures, Catalogue Raisonné of the Bronzes, Memphis, 2002, no. 14, illustration of another cast p. 148; illustration of the wax version p. 149

Attractive brown patina. Apart from some light patina wear and surface dirt in the crevices, consistent with age and handling, this work is in overall very good condition.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The fervent exploration of movement is a defining feature of the œuvre of Edgar Degas, and nowhere is his exceptional aptitude for representing the human form in motion more evident than in his sculptures. John Rewald writes that 'it was in his passionate search for movement that all the statuettes of dancers doing arabesques, bowing, rubbing their knees, putting their stockings on, etc., and of women arranging their hair, stretching, rubbing their neck and so on were created. All these women are caught in poses which represent one single instant, in an arrested movement which is pregnant with the movement just completed and the one about to follow. To use Baudelaire's words, Degas "loved the human body as a material harmony, as a beautiful architecture with the addition of movement"' (J. Rewald, op.cit., p. 23).

The pose Degas of the present work is an arabesque, which has manipulated the human form into the personification of equilibrium; the height of the dancer is matched by the distance from hand to foot and balances upon the tension of a single planted leg. As Suzanne Glover Lindsay suggests: 'Degas' freestanding dancers in arabesque poses are exceptional in nineteenth-century sculpture for their radical extension [...] A colourful anecdote describes Degas' vexed obsession with the arabesque's gravitational challenges as sculpture: "You wouldn't believe", Degas supposedly ranted to the painted Georges Jeanniot, "what that work [a sculptural arabesque] has cost in research and rage; balance, above all, is so difficult to achieve"' (S. G. Lindsay in Edgar Degas Sculpture, New York, 2010, p. 197). In the present model the exquisite balance between the expressively worked surface and delicate poise of the dancer's arabesque exemplifies the finest qualities of Degas' sculpture.