EDGAR DEGAS (Paris, 1834 - 1917) Lot n° 37

FILLETTE PORTANT DES FLEURS DANS SON TABLIER circa 1860-1862 Oil on canvas signed with the stamp lower right 73 x 55.5 cm Provenance Sale of the Degas studio, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 6 May 1918 Max Dearly in Paris Collection Gutzwiller Swiss Collection Exhibition Galerie Schmit 1975, Degas, p. 9, no. 4 (reprod. in colour) bibliography Paul-André Lemoisne, Degas et son OEuvre. II, 1946, no. 81, reproduced p. 43 Jacques Lassaigne and Fiorella Minervino, Degas, 1990 (coll. "Tout l'OEuvre peint de"), no. 52, reproduced p. 88 Michel Schulman, Catalogue critique numérique des peintures et pastels d'Edgar Degas, last updated 10 December 2019, reproduced. This inaugural work by Degas comes from his studio (fig. 1). Between 1853 and 1868 he observed the manner of the great masters in the Louvre and in the prints of the Bibliothèque Nationale, where he was able to find a reproduction of the portrait of Miss Murray (fig. 1), from which he evidently drew inspiration for this painting. Miss Murray, daughter of General George Murray and Lady Louia, goddaughter of the Duke of Wellington, married Henry Boyce in 1843. Her portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence (Bristol, 1769 - London, 1830) was often reproduced and published from 1834 onwards. Our painting, half the size of its illustrious model, has retained its graceful footwork. Degas has softened the background. He has blurred the all too recognisable features of the face while accentuating the shadows in the folds of the dress and on the tulle petticoat raised like a tutu to better highlight the legs of this little girl wearing flowers in her apron. He retained "all that [was] likely to help him solve the problem of movement in the body [...] to fix a gesture in suspension, frozen in its own becoming" (Lassaigne and Minervio, p. 86) and enriched it with the lesson of the great Spanish masters. Like Delacroix (1798-1863), Degas drew his dark backgrounds and the dynamic postures of his figures from Goya. In our painting, the little girl emerges from the shadows with a dance step. This entry of an anonymous little girl prefigures all the dancers and ballet scenes that were to be successful throughout the artist's career (fig. 3).