In the late 1870s Degas became fascinated by concert hall singers, eventually producing more than sixty pictures representing these boisterous, working-class women as they performed at outdoor taverns under glowing globes of artificial light. The close-up view in this diminutive but vibrantly-hued pastel positions us in the audience, and tantalizingly close to the entertainer herself, a singer tentatively identified as Victorine Demay who worked at venues including the Concert Parisien, the Eldorado, and the Alcazar d’Été through the 1880s. Degas portrayed Demay several times, and appears to have been captivated by her expressive gestures and commanding stage presence, which one contemporary described as sending a “frisson of pleasure through the crowd.”
Details
- Artist Name: Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
- Title: Café-Concert Singer
- Date: c. 1877
- Medium: Pastel on laid paper
- Dimensions: 6-3/8 x 4-3/4 in. (16.2 x 12.1 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation
- Accession Number: M.1978.21.P
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation
Object Information
[Durand-Ruel, Paris, stock no. 11096, sold 6 December 1917 to];
[Durand-Ruel, New York, stock no. 4135, sold 4 February 1928 to];
Gerald Brooks, New York.
Mrs. Ralph Pulitzer, New York, by descent in 1974 to;
Private Collection, Massachusetts, sold 1977 to;
[Wildenstein, New York, to];
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
[on loan]
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1978-09-07 to 1979-04-17
Gaze: Portraiture After Ingres
- Norton Simon Museum, 2009-10-30 to 2010-04-05
By Day & By Night: Paris in the Belle Époque
- Norton Simon Museum, 2019-10-04 to 2020-03-02
- Lemoisne, Paul-André, Degas et son oeuvre, no. 539 p. 305
- Janis, Eugenia Parry, The Burlington Magazine, p. 76
- Janis, Eugenia Parry, Degas Monotypes, no. 38
- Russoli, Franco; and Fiorella Minervino, L'opera completa di Degas, p. 113
- Adhemar, Jean; and Françoise Cachin, Edgar Degas: gravures et monotypes, 1973, p. 66
- Kendall, Richard, Degas by Himself, 1987, p. 170
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 153
- Campbell, Sara et al., Degas in the Norton Simon Museum, 2009, Fig. 12 p. 135
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 1538 p. 418
- Michel Schulman, Degas Catalogue Raisonné Online, 2021, MS-914
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