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Lot Essay
A writer and friend of Marcel Proust, Daniel Halévy (1872-1962) was the first owner of Deux danseuses and almost certainly acquired the work directly from Degas. The Halévy family were very close friends and neighbours of Degas who frequented their home at 22 rue de Douai. It was at rue de Douai, the home of Daniel's parents Ludovic and Louise Halévy, that in the 1870s Degas would sketch two or three times a week. A sketchbook completed in 1877 at the Halévy's was acquired by the Getty Museum in 1998 and embraces a variety of themes from everyday Parisian life. Ludovic and Daniel themselves feature in one of Degas's pastels which depicts other close friends of the artist and the Halévy family circle, including Walter Sickert, Jacques Blanche, Gervex, and Boulanger-Cavé (L.824). It was Daniel Halévy who prompted Degas to take up photography, which the artist embraced enthusiastically in 1895 (fig. 1). The close friendship between Degas and the Halévy's inspired Daniel Halévy to write a biography of the artist, My Friend Degas, which was published in 1964.
Edgar Degas was one of the principal painters of fans among the Impressionists, and Deux danseuses, which treats one of his most celebrated subjects, the ballet, is a particularly fine example of its kind. There are twenty-five recorded fan pictures by Degas, and with the exception of three painted around 1868-69, the majority of these were executed between 1878 and 1885. Deux danseuses, was executed in 1878-1879. Degas exhibited five fans at the Indépendants of 1879 which also included fans by Pissarro and Forain.
Several reasons inspired the Impressionist painters to explore the fan shape. Most influential were three exhibitions organised in Paris by the Japanese government between 1867 and 1878. This exposure to the East created a fascination in Europeans for anything Japanese. Fans were exported from Japan by the millions, making them very fashionable and easily obtainable.
Degas was attracted both by the japonisme of fan painting and the demands it placed on his approach to composition. As Siegfried Wickman describes: 'Degas's interest in the fan was not so much in the object itself, but in the compositional challenge posed by the peculiar shape of the pictorial surface... Among the principal influences on Degas was the Japanese fan painter Tawaraya Sotatsu (c.1570-1640), who lived in the Dairo-ji temple in Kyoto. His fans show unusual views, notably seen from above. Degas is also close to Sotatsu in his use of colours, showing a preference for browns, pink, ochres, and whitish tones, used to strangely abstract effect' (S. Wickmann, Japonisme: The Japanese influence on Western Art since 1858, London, 1981, p. 162).
In the decade between 1875 and 1885, Degas began to experiment with different media. Exquisitely executed in watercolour and in very fresh condition Deux danseuses is also heightened with silver and gold paint throughout the compostion and especially in the lake and background. 'In the fan designs, Degas achieved a virtual tour de force by using pastel, gouache and peinture à l'essence to establish the forms, adding gold and silver paint to the costumes and decor and finally sprinkling on flecks of gold leaf in a manner reminiscent of Japanese surimono prints, so that the surfaces themselves would suggest the brilliant artificiality of the theatres in which such fans were meant to be used' (T. Reff, Degas. The Artist's Mind, London, 1976, p. 284).
Edgar Degas was one of the principal painters of fans among the Impressionists, and Deux danseuses, which treats one of his most celebrated subjects, the ballet, is a particularly fine example of its kind. There are twenty-five recorded fan pictures by Degas, and with the exception of three painted around 1868-69, the majority of these were executed between 1878 and 1885. Deux danseuses, was executed in 1878-1879. Degas exhibited five fans at the Indépendants of 1879 which also included fans by Pissarro and Forain.
Several reasons inspired the Impressionist painters to explore the fan shape. Most influential were three exhibitions organised in Paris by the Japanese government between 1867 and 1878. This exposure to the East created a fascination in Europeans for anything Japanese. Fans were exported from Japan by the millions, making them very fashionable and easily obtainable.
Degas was attracted both by the japonisme of fan painting and the demands it placed on his approach to composition. As Siegfried Wickman describes: 'Degas's interest in the fan was not so much in the object itself, but in the compositional challenge posed by the peculiar shape of the pictorial surface... Among the principal influences on Degas was the Japanese fan painter Tawaraya Sotatsu (c.1570-1640), who lived in the Dairo-ji temple in Kyoto. His fans show unusual views, notably seen from above. Degas is also close to Sotatsu in his use of colours, showing a preference for browns, pink, ochres, and whitish tones, used to strangely abstract effect' (S. Wickmann, Japonisme: The Japanese influence on Western Art since 1858, London, 1981, p. 162).
In the decade between 1875 and 1885, Degas began to experiment with different media. Exquisitely executed in watercolour and in very fresh condition Deux danseuses is also heightened with silver and gold paint throughout the compostion and especially in the lake and background. 'In the fan designs, Degas achieved a virtual tour de force by using pastel, gouache and peinture à l'essence to establish the forms, adding gold and silver paint to the costumes and decor and finally sprinkling on flecks of gold leaf in a manner reminiscent of Japanese surimono prints, so that the surfaces themselves would suggest the brilliant artificiality of the theatres in which such fans were meant to be used' (T. Reff, Degas. The Artist's Mind, London, 1976, p. 284).