Degas’s first references were Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780–1867) and Édouard Manet (1832–1883), under whose influence he adopted the depiction of modern themes. After the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) and the events of the Paris Commune (1871), he traveled to New Orleans, his mother’s city of birth. He returned to Paris in 1873 and, disappointed with the official salons, joined a group of young artists who had become known as the impressionists. Degas played an important role in the organization of the group’s eight exhibitions, held between 1874 and 1886. He did not appreciate landscape painting in the open air; he preferred to study the movements of the human figure and animals, making pioneering use of the optical resources of photography. MASP has an extraordinary set of 73 sculptures by the artist. Born from experiments in painting and drawing, they were cast in bronze after his death. The only sculpture shown publicly during his life was Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen. Made originally in colored wax and wearing a tutu of white tulle, her ponytail tied with a ribbon, the work refers to the polychrome sculpture with a realistic and theatrical aspect existing in various traditions, ranging from Antiquity to the 18th-century nativity scenes.
— MASP Curatorial Team, 2015
Degas intended to display the wax at the fifth Impressionist exhibition, in April 1880, but it was only exhibited in the following year. Besides featuring a white tulle tutu and a ribbon in the hair, the wax was also polychromatic. Contrary to what one might imagine, these characteristics did not provoke scandal nor were they considered an extravagant innovation, as they could be traced back to very traditional sources: the Hispanic sacral sculpture of the sixteen and seventeen centuries, the Neapolitan crib of the Seteccento and, above all during those years, to the archeological discoveries of ancient polychromatic sculptures using several materials that were very much in fashion in the Salons (Millard 1976, pp. 61-64; Camesasca 1986, p. 210). But he was not spared moralist carping over the young girl, who “with savage brazenness, thrusts her face forward, or rather her little small snout”; so much so that it guaranteed Degas a place in the “history of cruel arts” (Mantz 1881, apud Camesasca 1986, p. 211), a criticism that was also directed at his relationship with the model, hinted at in the artist’s poem: “Tes pas légers de jour, tes pas légers de nuit.../ Mais pour mon goût connu! Qu’elle sente son fruit / Et garde aux palais d’or la race de sa rue.”(apud Camesasca 1986, p. 211).
Most of the numerous graphic studies for the sculpture are dispersed in the Louvre, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum, the Oslo Nasionalgalleriet and Lord Rayne’s Collection in London. Its dating is claimed to be 1875 (Schackelford 1984, p. 65), when Maria Van Goethem began sitting for him; she was of Belgian origin and a student at the Opera who was, however, more successful as a model than as a dancer. The dressed poses give way to nude studies, from various angles, clearly intended to be used for a subsequent molding.
We know that Horace Havemeyer and, above all, his wife, encouraged by Mary Cassat, tried to acquire the original wax model through Durand-Ruel (Havemeyer 1961, p. 255; Camesasca 1986, p. 211), but the purchase was not made for reasons that are still unclear.
— Unknown authorship, 1998
