The important & iconic sculpture Petite danseuse de quatorze ans by impressionist artist Edgar Degas was offered for sale in Sotheby’s Art Evening Auction of Impressionist and Modern Art in London on the 3rd of February 2009. La Petite danseuse is one of the most ambitious and iconic of Degas’s works and a groundbreaking sculpture from the Impressionist period. The bronze cast to be offered at Sotheby’s is one of only a handful of casts remaining in private hands.Created in wax circa 1879-81, Petite danseuse was the only sculpture to have been exhibited during the artist’s lifetime. Using a wire armature for the body and hemp for the arms and hands, Degas worked in modelling wax, dressing the figure in real silk, tulle and gauze. The wig came from Madame Cusset, supplier of ‘hair for puppets and dolls’. The wax sculpture was found in Degas’s studio following his death in 1917 and cast in bronze in from 1922.His model was Marie van Goethem, the daughter of a Belgian tailor and laundress, who was a ballet student at the Opéra and among the dancers of the Opéra who were of particular interest to Degas at this time. Estimated at 9-12 millions GBP, the Danseuse reached 13,25 millions including buyer's premium. Since 2001 the Degas price index rise 67%. Morale of the sale : the Danseuse is kidding the current crisis.
Edouard Degas (1834-1917) was trained in the tradition of Ingres and draftmanship that he never totally abandoned. His finest works were often done in pastels making the dancers look like floating above the tilted floor like a butterfly. This picture was made in 1899 at a time where he had serious eye problems.In 1977 it sold at auction for $ 264,000 in New York to the Sara Lee Corporation which endowed it later to the National Gallery London.
Degas (1834-1917) painted this picture in 1874 as from 1870 he increasingly painted ballet subjects: Dance Class (1871), Dancing Examination (1874), The Star (1876-77). Among other reasons they were easier to sell. Degas’ ballerinas have determined his popular image to his day. He sketched from a live model in his studio and combined poses into groupings that depicted rehearsal and performance scenes in which dancers on stage, entering the stage, and resting or waiting to perform are shown simultaneously and in counterpoint, often from an oblique angle of vision.This picture was sold in 1927 for 7200 Pounds.
"Deux blanchisseuses portant du linge" by Edgar Degas (1834-1917). Almost blind for his last twenty years, Degas worked mostly in pastel with increasingly broad, free handling. He loved to paint simple people's lives insisting on the dureness of their condition.
Five of Degas's pictures of laundresses including this one were shown at the Second Impressionist Exhibition in 1876.
In his novel the Dram Shop, French writer Emile Zola described laundresses at work, detailing the physically demanding labor involved in the act of pressing the iron. Similarly Degas emphasized the effort involved in carrying a heavy load of linen by showing the limping of the two women.
In addition to his artistic endeavors, Degas amassed a vast collection of art and considered to establish his own private museum. The museum was never realized and Degas passed away in 1917. The next year a big Degas sale was auctioned off by Christie's in London and this picture fetched 2300 Guineas (1 Gn=1 Pound and 1 Shilling).
Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas (or De Gas) (1834-1917), a keen observer, preferred to be called a Realist, although his style is related to that of Impressionists. His innovative composition, skillful drawing, and perceptive portrayal of movement is uniquely his own.
Degas also depicted social settings such as race courses, cafes, and music halls. He had a profound influence on later artists, Picasso and Toulouse-Lautrec, and made sketches from living models to capture their spontaneity, later completing the paintings in the studio.In his late years Degas was chatting in his studio with one of his few friends and many admirers, English painter Walter Richard Sickert. They decided to visit a café. Young Sickert got ready to summon a fiacre, a horse-drawn cab. Degas objected. "Personally, I don't like cabs. You don't see anyone. That's why I love to ride on the omnibus-you can look at people. We were created to look at one another, weren't we?"
Nothing could be better defining Degas that this casual comment. In 1981, this portrait of Eugène Manet sold for $5.3 million.
Edgar Degas (1834-1917) had a profund sense of human character. A wealthy aristocrat (de Gas) by birth, he was trained in the tradition of Ingres and when he joined the Impressionists, he did not abandon his allegiance to draftmanship.After beginning his artistic studies with Louis Lamothes, a pupil of Ingres, he started classes at the Ecole des Beaux Arts but left in 1854 and went to Italy. He stayed there for 5 years, studying Italian art, especially Renaissance works. Apart from sculptures, Degas worked on a considerable amount of canvasses but about 50% of them were devoted to dance and dancers. This Study of a Nude was part of the important Henri Ford II's collection sold in May 1980. It fetched $ 900,000.
Painted in 1876 by Edgar Degas (1834-1917) , L'Absinthe depicts a woman and a man who sit in the typical Parisian bistro. The man, wearing a hat, looks right, off the canvas, while the woman, dressed formally and also wearing a hat, stares vacantly downward. A glass filled with the titular greenish liquid sits before her.
The painting is a representation of the increasing social isolation in Paris during its stage of rapid growth. Degas denounces the alcoholism of the French society. Nothing has really changed nowadays but nobody is interested any more in painting this sort of scene.Edgar De Gas -he dropped the particule to adopt a more Republican Degas name- was born in Paris and is famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist.In 1892, this picture went at an auction for 150 Pounds in London where it sparks controversy. The persons represented in the painting were considered by English critics to be shockingly degraded and uncouth. Many regarded the painting as a French blow to morality. The Irish novelist George Moore described the woman in the painting as a "whore"!
It is now part of the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France.
Edouard Degas (1834-1917) was trained in the tradition of Ingres and draftmanship that he never totally abandoned. His finest works were often done in pastels making the dancers look like floating above the tilted floor like a butterfly. Rather than an Impressionist, Degas preferred to be called a Realist, although his style is related to that of Impressionists. His innovative composition, skillful drawing, and perceptive portrayal of movement is uniquely his own.
Degas also depicted social settings such as race courses, cafes, and music halls. He had a profound influence on later artists, Picasso and Toulouse-Lautrec, and made sketches from living models to capture their spontaneity, later completing the paintings in the studio.
This picture was made in 1880 : Les Blanchisseuses was sold by Christie's ten days after Black Monday in 1987 for £ 7.4 million ($13.4 million) showing how little impact the crash had on the art market.
The important & iconic sculpture Petite danseuse de quatorze ans by impressionist artist Edgar Degas was offered for sale in Sotheby’s Art Evening Auction of Impressionist and Modern Art in London on the 3rd of February 2009. 
