Dancer Ready to Dance, Right Foot Forward
Modeled 1882–95, cast 1919–21
Medium
Bronze
Dimensions
56.2 × 38.7 cm (22 1/8 × 13 1/4 in.); Base: 22.2 × 12.1 cm (8 3/4 × 4 3/4 in.)
Classification
statuette
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
68362
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
After Edgar Degas’s death in 1917, a large group of sculptures were discovered in his studio, most of them modeled in wax. With one exception, the works had never been exhibited during his lifetime and were virtually unknown to his contemporaries. Parisian foundry A. A. Hébrard eventually cast 74 of the figures into bronze, and three of the resulting sculptures in the collection of the Art Institute: Dancer Ready to Dance, Right Foot Forward, Arabesque, and Woman Arranging Her Hair. In Dancer R...
About the Artist
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas · 1834–1917
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas, born on July 19, 1834, in Paris to a prosperous banking family, was the eldest of five children. His mother, Célestine Musson, a Creole from New Orleans whose father Germain Musson had roots in Haiti, died when Degas was thirteen, leaving his father Augustin and unmarried uncles to guide him. Educated at the elite Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he earned a baccalauréat in...