Degas's Little Dancer

October 5, 2014 – February 8, 2015
West Building, Main Floor, M-82

Edgar Degas; *Little Dancer Aged Fourteen,* 1878–1881; pigmented beeswax, clay, metal armature, rope, paintbrushes, human hair, silk and linen ribbon, cotton and silk tutu, linen slippers, on wooden base; National Gallery of Art, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Sculpted with rich brown wax, a young ballerina stands with her arms straight, hands clasped behind her back, and one foot in front of the other on a square wooden base. Her body is angled to our left in this photograph. Both feet are splayed outward, and her right foot is placed far in front of her left. Bangs cover her forehead, and she has a heart-shaped, upturned face with a squat nose and slightly pursed lips. Her heavy-lidded eyes are nearly closed and her hair is pulled back and tied with a wide, cream-white ribbon. She wears a fabric costume with a sleeveless, gold-colored bodice, a gray tulle skirt, and ballet slippers. Her body is sculpted from dark brown wax, and a layer of wax covers her hair, bodice, and ballet slippers.

Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, 1878–1881pigmented beeswax, clay, metal armature, rope, paintbrushes, human hair, silk and linen ribbon, cotton and silk tutu, linen slippers, on wooden base
overall without base: 98.9 x 34.7 x 35.2 cm (38 15/16 x 13 11/16 x 13 7/8 in.) weight: 49 lb. (22.226 kg)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Study in the Nude of Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (Nude Little Dancer), c. 1878–1881pigmented beeswax, plaster core, metal and wood armatures, on plaster and wooden bases
overall without base: 69.5 x 29.3 x 30.3 cm (27 3/8 x 11 9/16 x 11 15/16 in.) overall (wood base): 3.5 x 48 x 31.1 cm (1 3/8 x 18 7/8 x 12 1/4 in.)
overall (plaster base): 5 x 34.6 x 26.8 cm (1 15/16 x 13 5/8 x 10 9/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Fourth Position Front, on the Left Leg, c. 1885/1890pigmented beeswax, metal armature, cork, on wooden base
overall without base: 60.3 x 37.8 x 34.1 cm (23 3/4 x 14 7/8 x 13 7/16 in.)
height (of figure): 56.8 cm (22 3/8 in.)
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

A long, brightly lit room is filled with at least nine young ballerinas in robin’s egg-blue dance costumes and pale pink shoes in this wide, horizontal painting. They all have light skin and brown or dark blond hair. The studio is lit from the left, and more light pours in through two windows toward the back. The wall closest to us is mint green with brown wainscoting covering the lower half, and a small mirror hanging a short distance down the wall. The walls of the space farther from us and the scuffed, worn floor are both painted with tan layered with washes of moss green and denim blue. A dancer in the lower left faces us and sits near a cello lying on the floor. The instrument’s curved upper body and neck emerge from the tutu near her left hip, on our right. She leans forward with her right arm, on our left, draped across her lap, and she rests her head on the other hand, propped up on her elbow. We look slightly down on her so only see the top of her head and the point of her nose. She wears a red jacket with her ice-blue, knee-length tutu spread around her. Her splayed feet are cropped by the bottom edge of the canvas. In the center are two dancers, one seated and the other standing. The seated girl is perched on a wooden chair with the back of her tutu draped over its top. She also wears a petal-pink jacket dotted with darker mauve. She gazes at the girl in front of her. That girl stands with her back to us, bowing her head slightly as she adjusts the bow of her emerald-green belt at the small of her back. At least six more dancers sit or stand along the far wall, in the upper right corner of the composition. One looks down at her tutu spread wide between her hands, and another holds a canary-yellow fan up to her face. The features of this group are loosely painted, making them indistinct. The artist signed the lower right, “Degas.”

The Dance Lesson, c. 1879oil on canvas, overall: 38 x 88 cm (14 15/16 x 34 5/8 in.)
framed: 59.7 x 108.3 x 5.1 cm (23 1/2 x 42 5/8 x 2 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

The Dance Class (Ecole de Danse), c. 1873oil on canvas, 47.6 x 62.2 cm (18 3/4 x 24 1/2 in.)
Trustees of the Corcoran Collection (William A. Clark Collection)

At least three men in black suits, one wearing a top hat, and a ballerina wearing a white costume, all stand among a theater set with a painted, partially raised backdrop across the background in this nearly square pastel over a monotype print on paper. The scene is loosely drawn so many details are difficult to make out. The man we see the most of is shown from the ankles up, standing near the lower right corner of the composition. He faces away from us with his hands in his pockets. The ballerina stands facing our right next to him, and she is cut off by the right edge of the composition. She has pale skin and dark hair, and a black ribbon is tied around her neck. She wears a knee-length white tutu with a crimson-red sash tied around the waist of the white bodice. One pink leg raised parallel to the ground disappears behind the man in black. The stage beneath them is streaked with sand brown and pale gray. A tree trunk and branches leans into the scene from the upper right corner. Part of a stage set painted with mostly straw yellow with touches of mint green screens off the view to our left. Two sets of black suit pants show that a pair of men stand behind it, facing the back of the stage. One of them rests his hand on a cane. The backdrop across the back is painted with greenery below a blue sky. In a gap between the lower edge of the backdrop and the stage, about ten pairs of legs, clad either in pink stockings with white shoes or brown stockings with yellow shoes, are visible from the thighs down. One more pair of black, trouser-covered legs stand with feet planted at hip width, to our right. The artist signed the work in black letters near the lower left corner, “Degas.”

The Curtain, c. 1880pastel over charcoal and monotype on laid paper mounted on board
sheet: 29 x 33.3 cm (11 7/16 x 13 1/8 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Ballet Dancers, c. 1877pastel and gouache over monotype
overall: 29.7 x 26.9 cm (11 11/16 x 10 9/16 in.)
framed: 46.6 x 43.5 x 6.3 cm (18 3/8 x 17 1/8 x 2 1/2 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection

We look slightly down and across a stage, as if from the wings, at a ballet performance with ballerinas to our left and the audience to our right in this vertical print. The artist has added strokes in pastel in some areas, as for the dancers’ pink tights and pointed toe shoes. The whole scene is loosely rendered, either with pastel or in the monotype print on which the artist drew. There are at least three ballerinas lined up in a row moving away from us, along the left edge of the paper. Their dark hair is pulled up and, for the woman farthest from us, two pink flowers adorn her hair. They wear costumes with silvery-white bodices and flaring, knee-length tutus. An area streaked with pine green and brown in the upper left corner could be a curtain behind the dancers, and people wearing black watch from red box seats across the stage from us. The surface of the stage itself is a blend of charcoal gray and rose pink, and the edge is lined with white to our right. The audience is a made up of a few peach dots within strokes and smudges of black. More gold and brick-red box seats fill the wall opposite us. There is a black silhouette along the right edge of the paper, with a bulge near the bottom right corner perhaps indicating the shoulder of an onlooker from the wings, next to us. The artist signed the work with vibrant blue near the lower right corner, “degas.”

Dancers at the Old Opera House, c. 1877pastel over monotype on laid paper
overall: 21.8 x 17.1 cm (8 9/16 x 6 3/4 in.)
framed: 35.5 x 31.1 x 3.8 cm (14 x 12 1/4 x 1 1/2 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection

Ballet Scene, c. 1907pastel on greenish transparent tracing paper
overall: 76.8 x 111.2 cm (30 1/4 x 43 3/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Chester Dale Collection

Paul MatheyEdgar Degas, 1882graphite on paperboard
overall: 48.2 x 31.5 cm (19 x 12 3/8 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Dancer Seen from Behind and Three Studies of Feet, c. 1878black chalk and pastel on blue-gray laid paper
overall: 45.6 x 59.8 cm (17 15/16 x 23 9/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Myron A. Hofer in memory of his mother, Mrs. Charles Hofer

We look down onto a shadowy stage with a ballerina and a man in this black and white work on paper. The man stands in the lower left corner of the composition wearing a knee-length jacket and resting his wrists on a tall stick in front of his body. Though his face and head are lost in deep shadow, it seems that he looks toward the ballerina to our right. Up on her toes en pointe, her body faces us but her arms are raised and angled toward the upper left corner of the composition. She turns her upper torso and head to gaze in the direction of her hands. Lighting comes from the front edge of the curving stage and illuminates the man’s pants and undersides of his arms, the dancer’s legs, tutu, and face, and the front part of the stage. The space behind the people is lost in shadow but is marked by strokes and smudges. In the upper left corner the names of the artists are scratched onto the ink that had coated the surface of the printing plate: “Lepic” and “Degas.”

Edgar Degas, executed in collaboration with Vicomte Ludovic Napoléon LepicThe Ballet Master (Le maître de ballet), c. 1874monotype heightened and corrected with white chalk or wash
plate: 56.5 x 70 cm (22 1/4 x 27 9/16 in.)
sheet: 62 x 85 cm (24 7/16 x 33 7/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

Overview: Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (1878–1881), Edgar Degas’s groundbreaking statuette of a young ballerina that caused a sensation at the 1881 impressionist exhibition, takes center stage in an exploration of Degas’s fascination with ballet and his experimental, modern approach to his work. This exhibition is presented in conjunction with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ world-premiere musical Little Dancer, which runs from October 25 through November 30, 2014.

Degas was a keen observer and wry but sympathetic chronicler of the daily life of dancers, depicting their world off-stage, at rehearsal or in the wings. Degas’s Little Dancer showcases this world of gaslight and struggle, as captured by the master.

One of the Gallery’s most popular works of art, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen will be presented with 14 additional works from the Gallery’s collection, including the monumental pastel Ballet Scene (c. 1907), monotypes and smaller original statuettes by Degas that are related to Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. The exhibition also includes the oil painting The Dance Class (c. 1873) from the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

The National Gallery of Art has the largest and most important collection of Degas’s surviving original wax sculptures in the world. Its wax version of Little Dancer Aged Fourteen is the only one formed by the artist’s own hands and the only sculpture he ever showed publicly. Degas did not carve sculpture but used an additive process. Little Dancer Aged Fourteen was modeled in wax over a metal armature, bulked with organic materials including wood, rope, and even old paintbrushes in the arms. Degas elevated the sculpture’s realism by affixing a wig of human hair and giving his ballerina a cotton-and-silk tutu, a cotton faille bodice, and linen slippers.

Organization: Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington

Attendance: 149,237

Brochure: Degas’s Little Dancer, by Alison Luchs and Margaret Doyle. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2014.

Exhibition Feature

Modeling Movement: Degas's Dancers

Press Release

Exhibition Checklist