Edgar DegasFrench, 1834–1917The Star
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Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
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- In this state since
- Source
- The museum's own collection data
About the work
The prima ballerina shown in Edgar Degas’s pastel has been identified as the Spanish dancer Rosita Mauri, who moved from Catalonia to Paris and gained fame at the Paris Opéra in the late 1870s.
Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0
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- Art Institute of Chicago: the museum's own open data · fetched 7 days ago
- Image: Art Institute of Chicago — CC0 / public domain (AIC image API)
Meanwhile, in the life of Edgar Degas
The whole life1870s
From “de Gas” back to plain “Degas”
The archives disproved the legend of an ancient noble line: the artist's paternal ancestors were bakers, and the name “de Gas” was invented by his father, who commissioned a false genealogy. In the 1870s Edgar returned to the plain spelling, Degas.
second half of the 1870s
Pastel becomes his main medium
Degas increasingly chose pastel, often combining it with monotype, lithography, etching or gouache. To keep the colour from darkening under ordinary fixatives he devised his own method of fixing and applied pastel in layers.
1877
Friendship with Mary Cassatt
Degas invited Mary Cassatt to show in the third Impressionist exhibition, having admired her portrait “Ida” at the Salon of 1874. He introduced her to pastel and engraving, while she helped him sell paintings and promoted his reputation in the United States.
autumn 1879 – April 1880
The prints journal: Degas abruptly withdraws
In the autumn and winter of 1879–1880 Degas and Cassatt worked closely together on a prints journal; he owned a small printing press. In April 1880 Degas abruptly withdrew, and without his support the project folded.
by 1880
The end of his financial crisis
By 1880 Degas had fully overcome his financial crisis and become a respected figure in the Paris art world; the Impressionist exhibitions, which proved commercially useful to him, helped.
1881
“The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years” on show
The nearly life-size wax figure with real hair and a cloth tutu, modelled on Marie van Goethem, provoked a strong reaction: critics found its realism extraordinary, but many denounced the dancer as ugly. It was the only sculpture Degas showed in his lifetime.
