Edgar Degas
We present today's legendary sculpture thanks to the Städel Museum, where now you can visit the first major exhibition ever to explore the question of how the attributes of Impressionist painting, including light, color, movement, and even ephemerality, found expression in sculpture. As the pandemic is in full swing, we are happy that we can present this masterpiece online.
Degas’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (from a private European collection) was in the sixth Impressionist exhibition in 1881 when the critic Jules Claretie first introduced the term Impressionist sculptor. By depicting a young ballet pupil, Degas had chosen a topic related to the dark side of the Parisian entertainment business: back then, the public associated the portrayal of a young ballerina with the subject of prostitution. The artist underscored the novelty of the motif by employing everyday materials unusual in art at the time. He made the figure primarily of wax which, regarded as modern and unconventional, would soon come into use as an alternative to marble and bronze. The work is thus a prototypical example of a sculptural approach that sought to react to the circumstances of a fundamentally changing society with new kinds of materials.
After his death in 1917, his heirs translated the numerous wax figures found in his studio into a durable material by having them cast in bronze in limited editions. These sculptures bear a direct connection to the motifs Degas favored throughout his career: dancers, bathers and boudoir scenes, and horses and jockeys. For the artist, they were part of a cross-media working process. He tried out various expressions and movements in two- and three-dimensional studies alike and profited from the interplay between them.