Little Dancer's Big Price

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Feb 4th 2009 at 9:02PM

A bronze sculpture of a young dancer proved that the art market isn't quite dead yet. British millionaire Sir John Madejski put his Degas dancer up for sale at Sotheby's Impressionist art auction on February 3. The bronze sculpture, Petite danseuse de quatorze ans, is one of only a few remaining in private hands and was estimated at £9 – 12 million. Instead it brought in £13.3 million pounds ($19.2 million) over £8 million more than he paid for it back in 2004.The three-foot-high sculpture of a dancer was one of an edition of 28 bronze casts made in 1922 after the artist's death in 1917. The buyer was an anonymous Asian collector. The sculpture was the top lot in Sotheby's London sale of Impressionist and modern art where 76 percent of the 29 lots found buyers. The sale brought in £32.6 million versus a low estimate of £40.6 million. Compare that with last year, where the February Impressionist and modern art sale at Sotheby's brought in £117 million.

[Thanks, Lana]

Tags: auction, bronze, dancer, degas

Filed under: Art

Source

Subscribe to these comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Gary Arseneau Feb 4th 2009 11:02PM

All so-called sculptures in bronze, attributed to Edgar Degas, are posthumous -counterfeits-.

That would also make Sir John Madejski's "Little Dancer" -counterfeit-.

You see, Edgar Degas was some three or more years dead (d. 1917) when those 2nd to 3rd-generation-removed counterfeits were posthumously reproduced in bronze with counterfeit -Degas- signatures applied between 1920 to 1936 or later.

The dead don't sculpt, much less sign anything.

This factual perspective is confirmed in the National Gallery of Art’s published 1998 Degas at the Races catalogue. On page 180 in Daphne S. Barbour’s and Shelly G. Strum’s “The Horse in Wax and Bronze” essay, these authors write: “Degas never cast his sculpture in bronze, claiming that it was a “tremendous responsibility to leave anything behind in bronze -- the medium is for eternity.”

Additionally, on the National Gallery of Art’s www.nga.gov/education/degas-11.htm website, it states: “By comparing the sculpture to stylistic changes in Degas' paintings and pastels, we are developing a chronology for the sculpture, which Degas did not date or sign.”

In the United States the Association of Art Museum Directors endorses the College Art Association's ethical guidelines on sculptural reproductions. In part, those ethical guidelines state: "any transfer into new material unless condone by the artist, is to be considered inauthentic or counterfeit and should not be acquired or exhibited as works of art."

Sothebys senior vice president John Tancock was one of the original signees for these 1974 ethical guidelines.

Gary Arseneau
artist & scholar
Fernandina Beach, Florida

just me Feb 5th 2009 4:15PM

This scultpture is really beautiful in person, or one like it. I've seen one in Washington and I think one in Philadelphia, I think I even saw one with a new-ish tutu--the poise, the pose, a certain serenity and a deft artist hand makes this a really beautiful work.