(Paris 1834–1917)
A Standing Dancer, Her Hands Behind Her Back (Danseuse debout, les mains derrière le dos), 1887, stamp of the signature, stamp of the atelier on the verso, pastel and charcoal on paper, 47 x 39.5 cm, framed

We are grateful to Galerie Brame & Lorenceau who kindly confirmed the authenticity of this work and its inclusion in their archives.

Provenance:
Atelier Edgar Degas (sold.: Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 2nd sale, 11–13 December 1918, lot 204 ill. p. 108)
Gustave Pellet (1859–1919), Paris
Maurice Exsteens (1887–1961), Paris (by descent from the above, 1919)
Otto Wertheimer, Paris (1960)
Private Collection, Zurich (acquired from the above, 1961)
Private Collection, Switzerland (by descent from the above)
Christie’s, London, 27 June 2002, lot 310
Private Collection, New York (acquired at the sale above)
Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, London
acquired from the above by the present owner, 2009 –
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Paris, Galerie André Weil, Degas, Peintre du mouvement, June 1939, no. 19
Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Danse et divertissements, 1948–1949, no. 68
Bern, Klipstein und Kornfeld, Choix d’une collection privée, October-November 1960, no. 21 with ill.
Tübingen, Kunsthalle and Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Edgar Degas, Pastelle, Ölskizzen, Zeichnungen, January - May 1984, p. 385, no. 172 with. ill.
Omaha, Joslyn Art Museum and Williamstown and Massachusetts, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Degas and the Little Dancer,
February 1998 - January 1999, p. 175, no. 47 with ill.

Literature:
M. L. Bataille, Zeichnungen aus dem Nachlass von Degas, Kunst und Künstler, vol. 28, July 1930, p. 405 with ill.
P. A. Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre, Paris, 1946, vol. III, pp. 530–531, no. 909 with ill.

A Standing Dancer, Her Hands behind Her Back / Pastel and charcoal on paper, 1887
The coloured pastel drawing A Standing Dancer, Her Hands behind Her Back is characterised by the vivacious naturalness of the dancer’s precisely drawn posture, which is backlit and depicted from a slightly elevated perspective. The viewer seems to be granted access to this intimate moment by chance, as the young ballerina ties her skirt and looks at her feet, lost in thought. The subject is positioned slightly off-centre on the sheet, and as a result the unmarked areas are held in a suspenseful balance. The rhythmic structure of the lines is blended with the painterly flatness of the softly reflected light, and the blue and green shading.

Degas’ oeuvre focuses on a small number of themes drawn from Parisian daily life and night scenes. Far more than 200 of his works are devoted to ballet, but only a little more than a fifth of them depict ballet actually being performed, while the rest show dancers backstage without any glamour, practising at the barre, resting, getting dressed, and massaging their joints. Degas was viewed as the realist among the Impressionists, and he was less interested in set poses and conventional, formal elegance than in the authenticity, positioning and spins of the dancers, as well as the hard physical labour that formed the foundation of their poise. His precise analyses of the movements of the female body, along with his experiments with unusual perspectives, cuts and fragmentations, are the reasons for the modernity of his images, which extended well into the 20th century.

Drawing, and from the 1870s onwards, pastel chalk, was the artist’s preferred medium due to its range of possibilities for expression when turning visual experiences into reality and creating images. Variations of this figure with her back to the viewer are integrated into various compositions displaying multiple dancers in three small paintings by Degas: The Dance Lessons (c. 1879, National Gallery of Art Washington D.C.), Dancers in the Rehearsal Room (c. 1882-1885, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and Dancers in the Green Room (c. 1879, Detroit Institute of Arts), with the image in Detroit being the most similar due to the positioning of the feet. Like many of Degas’ studies from this period, the dancer in A Standing Dancer, Her Hands behind Her Back is not only larger and placed in a more central position: she is also characterised by a freedom and confidence in the drawing of the lines, which is rarer in the refined paintings.
Edgar Degas, born in Paris in 1834, died there in 1917.