Edgar DEGAS (1834 - 1917) - Lot 80

Edgar DEGAS (1834 - 1917) Woman with spyglass Graphite. Studio sale stamp lower left (Lugt 658). 41 x 28 cm Provenance: Fourth Degas sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, July 2/3/4, 1919, no. 89 f, reproduced. Bibliography: Paul-André Lemoisne, Degas et son œuvre, volume II, Éd. Garland Publishing, New-York and London, 1984, under no. 269, p.128. Related works: - Femme à la lorgnette, petrol sketch on pink paper, British Museum, London, Lemoisne 179. - La Lorgneuse, oil sketch, Burrell Collection, Glasgow, Lemoisne 268. - Lyda (Woman with spyglass), gasoline painting on paper, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalderie Neuer Meister, Dresden, Lemoisne 269. This sober study of a female figure observing with a spyglass can be compared to a series of studies of the same figure (see related works) that Degas had begun while painting one of his racing pictures in 1866 (Les Jockeys, Lemoisne 184). The figure painted in this picture was erased by the artist. Even more interestingly, his silhouette appears elliptically sketched behind Degas' figure of Édouard Manet at the races (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Inv. 19; 51.8), dated circa 1868-69. Degas seems to have had a project for a painting on the theme of racing, which never came to fruition, but in which this female figure played a prominent role (see: Degas exhibition catalog, Paris-Ottawa-New-York, 1988-1989, p.129, under number 74). In any case, the subject obsessed Degas, who sketched the figure again around 1875-1876 (opus quoted above, no. 154). The misogynist painter seems haunted by this figure of the modern woman, who has come to observe the magnificent racehorses, and even the jockeys, like an entomologist. Introduced by the Anglomaniacs, racing has been a chic meeting place since a grandstand was built on the Bois de Boulogne racecourse in 1857. People come here to watch the races, but also to place bets. Hidden behind her spyglass, this female figure is the object of our voyeuristic desire; she follows the horses and we follow her gaze. Her identity, forever anonymous, makes her the prototype of a dream woman; at once close by the magnification through which she scrutinizes us, and unattainable in her features hidden from our curiosity.