THE GALLERY CLOSING SALE PART 2
Lot 343:
Description
Edgar Degas etching, Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Paintings Gallery. Etching, aquatint and drypoint, circa 1879-80. The etching is in a 19th Century giltwood gesso frame. Measures 18 1/4" x 13 3/4". 11 7/8" x 5" inches, wide margins. Twenty-first state (of 21), after cancellation. Edition of approximately 150, published by A. Vollard, Paris; 1920. A superb, dark and richly-inked impression with very strong contrasts and the cancellation lines unobtrusive. Catalogue raisonne reference: Delteil 29; Adhémar 54. From the Estate of Daniel W Collins, Moorestown, New Jersey. Of the 32 impressions recorded by Reed and Shapiro, 27 are in museums. Very Fine, Very Crisp Image with great detail. Catalogue Raisonne: Reed and Shapiro 51.iii/ixColta Ives, The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Great Wave: The Influence of Japanese Woodcuts on French Prints. Ex. cat. New York, 1974, fig. no. 32, p. 36, ill. Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity. Exh. cat., Musée d’Orsay, Paris, September 25, 2012-January 20, 2013, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, February 26-May 27, 2013, Art Institute of Chicago, June 26-September 22, 2013. Gloria Groom, New Haven, CT, 2012, p. 293, ill. (New York only). en passant: Impressionism in Sculpture. ex. cat., Städel Museum. Frankfurt, March 19-June 28. Alexander Eiling, Eva Mongi-Vollmer, 2020, fig. no. 3, p. 298. The most famous of all Degas’ prints, Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Paintings Gallery is regarded as a high point of the mid-nineteenth century etching revival in France. Unlike the very similar Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Etruscan Gallery which was probably intended for publication, Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Paintings Gallery exists only in proof impressions which show the artist’s fascination with printmaking techniques. Thirty-two impressions were included in the Atelier sale of 1918 including the current example. As with The Etruscan Gallery, The Paintings Gallery relates closely to the pastel At the Louvre: Miss Cassatt (Lemoisne 581). This original consists of various joined sheets revealing Degas’ preoccupation with the placement of figures. From a photograph and subsequent tracings of the figures, Degas arrived at the conjoined composite of Mary Cassatt and her sister Lydia, which are reused in The Paintings Gallery. The striking element in the composition is not, however, just the placement of the figures but their relationship to the door-jamb to our left and the consequent overall patterning of the plate. This Japanese element of design adds strongly to the originality of the composition and the modernity of style which it conveys.
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