Dancer ready to dance, one foot forward

Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas

From the late 1860s Degas took up sculpture, focusing in particular on ballerinas. Degas modelled his figures in a highly malleable mixture of wax and clay, using ordinary things like matchsticks, wire and wine corks to strengthen them. Here a bit of wire used as an armature is visible poking out of the right hand. Degas never had any of his sculpture cast in bronze.

Dancer ready to dance, right foot forward (Préparation à la danse, pied droit en avant), Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas(1834-1917), Circa 1885 =1890, ©The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London