Mapping Degas Mapping Degas Real Spaces, Symbolic Spaces and Invented Spaces in the Life and Work of Edgar Degas (1834-1917) By Roberta Crisci-Richardson Mapping Degas: Real Spaces, Symbolic Spaces and Invented Spaces in the Life and Work of Edgar Degas (1834-1917) By Roberta Crisci-Richardson This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Roberta Crisci-Richardson All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-7449-3 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7449-6 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations ................................................................................... viii Acknowledgements ................................................................................... xii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Chapter One ............................................................................................... 35 Paris 1. Businessmen 2. Auguste Degas 3. Right Bank 4. Left Bank 5. Self-Portraits Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 71 Italy 1. What Degas found in Italy 2. “Rubens, what for?” Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 84 History Painting 1. The Studio, 13 rue de Laval 2. The Bellelli Family 3. History Paintings/Exceptional Women 4. Mademoiselle d’Orléans Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 114 Normandism 1. Horse-Racing 2. Norman Landscapes 3. The Channel Coast vi Table of Contents Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 140 Degas’s Iconography 1. Self-referential portraiture 2. Pauline de Metternich and Other Monsters 3. Painting and Social Life 4. Musical Evenings 5. Top Hats 6. Place de la Concorde Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 182 Taking the City 1. The Louvre and the City 2. The Road from Holland 3. The rue Laffitte 4. The Café 5. The Impressionist Installations Chapter Seven .......................................................................................... 223 The Paris Opera 1. The Orchestra of the Opera 2. Theatre Scenes before 1870 3. Dance Classes 4. The Dancer Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 246 The Body of the Artist 1. The Abelardian Ideal 2. “Good food, healthy living...” Chapter Nine ............................................................................................ 258 Degas’s Avant-garde 1. The Franco-Prussian War 2. The Commune 3. Degas during the Commune 4. Collaboration 5. Revolutionary Impressionists Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 292 “Leave me on my dung-hill” 1. Degas’s fin-de-siècle 2. Maison d’artiste Mapping Degas vii Conclusion ............................................................................................... 322 Bibliography ............................................................................................ 325 Index ........................................................................................................ 372 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Fig. 1-1 Portrait of René-Hilaire Degas, 1857, oil on canvas, cm 53 x 41, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. ©RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski Fig. 1-2 Auguste Degas and Lorenzo Pagans, 1871-72, oil on canvas, cm 54.5 x 40, Musée d’Orsay. ©Musée d'Orsay, RMN-Grand Palais /Patrice Schmidt Fig. 1-3 Self-Portrait with Charcoal, 1855, oil on canvas, cm 81 x 64, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.©RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski Fig. 2-1 Portrait of Gustave Moreau, 1860, oil on canvas, cm 40 x 22, Musée Gustave Moreau, Paris. ©RMN-Grand Palais/Droits résérvés Fig. 2-2 Study of Hands, 1858, oil on canvas, cm 38x 46, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. ©RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay)/ Hervé Lewandowski Fig. 3-1 The Bellelli. Family, 1858-67, oil on canvas, cm 200 x 250, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.©RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski Fig. 3-2 Edmondo and Thérèse Morbilli, c.1865, oil on canvas, cm 117.2 x 89.7, Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC Fig. 3-3 Portrait of Edmondo and Thérèse Morbilli, 1865, oil on canvas, cm 116.5 x 88.3, Gift of Robert Treat Paine, 2nd, 31.33, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Fig. 3-4 Alexander and Bucephalus, 1861-62, oil on canvas, cm 115 x 89, Bequest of Lore Heinemann in memory of her husband Dr Rudolf J. Heinemann, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC Fig. 3-5 The Daughter of Jephthah, 1859-1861, oil on canvas, cm 195.58 x 298.45, The Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts. Purchased with the Drayton Hillier fund SC 1933:9-1 Fig. 3-6 The Young Spartans Exercising, c. 1860-62, oil on canvas, cm 109.5 x 155, The National Gallery, London Fig. 3-7 Semiramis Building Babylon, c.1860-62, oil on canvas, cm 150 x 258, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. ©RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski Mapping Degas ix Fig. 3-8 Scene of War in the Middle Ages, 1863-65, essence on paper mounted on canvas, cm 83 x 145, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. ©RMN- Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay)/Gérard Blot Fig. 3-9 Charles Dauphin, The Massacre of the Niobids, oil on canvas, cm 213 x 350, Galleria Sabauda, Turin. © Su concessione del Ministero dei Beni Culturali Fig. 4-1 At the Races, 1860-62, oil on canvas, cm 43.3 x 65.5, Kunstmuseum, Basel, Schenkung Martha und Robert von Hirsch, Basel, 1977. Photocredit: Kunstmuseum Basel, Martin P. B(cid:294)hler Fig. 4-2 The Gentlemen’s Races, 1862, reworked in 1882, oil on canvas, cm 48.5x61.5, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay)/Adrien Didlerjean Fig. 4-3 Scene from The Steeplechase. The Fallen Jockey, 1866 (reworked 1880 and 1897), oil on canvas, cm 180 x 152, Paul Mellon collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC Fig. 4-4 At the Races in the Countryside,1869, oil on canvas, cm 36.5 x 55.9, 1931 Purchase Fund, 26.790, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Fig. 4-5 Dead Fox in a Wood, 1867, oil on canvas, cm 92 x 73, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen. © RMN-Grand Palais /Michèle Bellot Fig. 4-6 Beside the Sea, 1869, pastel cm 23.81 x 31.43, gift of Bruce and ruth Dayton, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 96: 86. Photo: Minneapolis Institute of Arts Fig. 4-7 Combing the Hair, 1869, essence on paper mounted on canvas, cm 47 x 82,6, The National Gallery, London Fig. 5-1 Portrait of Pauline de Metternich, 1865-66, oil on canvas, cm 41 x 29, The National Gallery, London Fig. 5-2 Portrait of a Man, 1867, oil on canvas, cm 85 x 65, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York Fig. 5-3 Suzanne and Edouard Manet, 1867-68, oil on canvas, cm 65 x 71, Kytakiushu Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan/Bridgeman Images Fig. 5-4 Portrait of Mme Gobillard, 1869, oil on canvas, cm 55.2 x 65.1, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequests of Mrs H. O. Havemeyer, 1929 (29.100.45), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Fig. 5-5 Victoria Dubourg, c. 1868-9, oil on canvas, cm 81.3 x 64.8, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, Gift of Mr and Mrs William E. Levis, 1963.45 Fig. 5-6 Mlle Dihau at the piano, 1869, oil on canvas, cm 45 x 32.5, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais/Hervé Lewandowski Fig. 5-7 Portrait of Léon Bonnat, 1863, oil on canvas, cm 43 x 36, Musée Bonnat, Bayonne. © RMN-Grand Palais /René-Gabriel Ojéda x List of Illustrations Fig. 5-8 Portrait of James Tissot, 1867-8, oil on canvas, cm 151.4 x 111.8, Rogers Fund, 1939 (39.161), photographed by Malcolm Varon, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Fig. 5-9 Self-Portrait with Evariste de Valernes, 1865, oil on canvas, cm 116 x 89, Musée d’Orsay.© RMN-Grand Palais/Hervé Lewandowski Fig. 5-10 Place de la Concorde. Vicomte Lepic and his Daughters, 1875, oil on canvas, cm 78.4 x 117.5, The State Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia/Bridgeman Images Fig. 6-1 Portraits in an Office, New Orleans, 1873, oil on canvas, cm 73 x 92, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Pau, France. © RMN-Grand Palais /Michèle Bellot/Madeleine Coursaget Fig. 6-2 Henri Fantin-Latour, Un Atelier aux Batignolles, 1870, oil on canvas, cm 171 x 205, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski Fig. 6-3 Le Café de la Nouvelle Athènes, 1875-76, oil on canvas, cm 92 x 68, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais/Hervé Lewandowski Fig. 7-1 The Orchestra of the Opera, 1869-70, oil on canvas, cm 56.5 x 46.2, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski Fig. 7-2 Musicians in the Orchestra, 1872, oil on canvas, cm 69 x 49, Städtische Galerie, Städel Museum, Frankfurt a. M. © U. Edelmann- Städel Museum-ARTOTHEK Fig. 7-3 Mlle Fiocre in the Ballet of ‘La Source’, 1867, oil on canvas, cm 130 x 145, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York Fig. 7-4 The Dance Class, 1871, oil on wood, cm 19.7 x 27, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequests of Mrs H. O. Havemeyer, 1929 (29.100.184), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Fig. 7-5 The Dance Class, 1873-76, oil on canvas, cm 85.5 x 75, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. ©RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski Fig. 7-6 Ballet Rehearsal on Stage, 1874, oil on canvas, cm 65 x 81, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. ©RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski Fig. 9-1 Jeantaud, Linet at Lainé, March 1871, oil on canvas, cm 38 x 46, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski Fig. 9-2 Portrait of Mlle Hortense Valpinçon, c. 1871, oil on mattress ticking, cm 75.57 x 113.67 (canvas), The John R. Vanderlip und 48.1, Minneapolis Institute of Arts