The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

Frieze of Dancers

c. 1895

Edgar Degas

(French, 1834–1917)

France, 19th century

oil on fabric

Framed: 103 x 233.5 x 7 cm (40 9/16 x 91 15/16 x 2 3/4 in.); Unframed: 70 x 200.5 cm (27 9/16 x 78 15/16 in.)

Gift of the Hanna Fund 1946.83

Location: 222 Impressionism & Post-Impressionism

Did You Know?

The ballet is a subject Degas returned to again and again over the course of his career. Rather than public performances, he often depicted dancers behind the curtain, practicing, waiting, or, as in this painting, lacing up their shoes.

Description

This painting may depict a single dancer seen from four different viewpoints. The young woman is placed in an undefined setting, surrounded by mere wisps of color, applied so spontaneously that the paint ran and dripped. Degas even added the circles in the foreground with his thumb. Such audacity, while acceptable in a small sketch, must have shocked the artist's contemporaries when presented on a six-foot canvas. Equally radical is the idea of combining multiple views of a single figure. Degas's unusual presentation may have been inspired by the photographs of Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904)

September 19,1904
(Durand-Ruel, Paris, France, acquired from the artist and sold to Paul Cassier the same day)
November 21, 1904
(Paul Cassirer, Berlin Germany, sold to Max Liebermann)
1904-May 9, 1933
Max Liebermann [1847-1935], Berlin, Germany, deposited to the Kunsthaus Zürich
1933-1935
Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland
1935-1946
Kathe Riezler, Max Leibermann's daughter, [1885-1952] Berlin, Germany and New York, NY, by inheritance (on loan to the Art Institute of Chicago, October 1941-October 1942).
-1946
(Paul Rosenberg & Co., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
1946-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Meier-Graefe, Julius. Degas: ein Beitrag zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der modernen Malerei. München: R. Piper, 1920. Reproduced: pl. 62
Frances, Henry S. "Degas' Frieze of Dancers entitled Danseuses ajustant leurs chaussons." Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art XXXIII, no. 6 (June, 1946) 87-94. Reproduced: p. 89-91
Milliken, William M. "Report for the Year 1946." Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art XXXIVI, no. 6 (June, 1947) 127-139. Mentioned: p. 128
Browse, Lillian. Degas Dancers. London: Faber and Faber, 1949. Reproduced: no. 115, p. 376
Venturi, Lionello. Impressionists and Symbolists: Manet, Degas, Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Renoir, Cezanne, Seurat, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec. New York, NY: Scribner, 1950. Mentioned: p. 41-42; Reproduced: fig. 36
Cleveland Museum of Art, “Cleveland Owned Paintings Will Go to France,” April 20, 1955, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.org
Cabanne, Pierre. Edgar Degas. Paris: Editions Pierre Tisné, 1957. Reproduced: pl. 124
The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 506 archive.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 173 archive.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 173 archive.org
Russoli, Franco and Fiorella Minervino. L'opera completa di Degas. Milan: Rizzoli, 1970. Reproduced: no. 1093, Mentioned: p. 1893-1898
Hüttinger, Eduard. Degas. New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 1988. Reproduced: p. 90
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 214 archive.org
Ikegami, Chūji Ikegami. Doga. Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1980. Reproduced: pl. 49; Mentioned: p. 121
Roberts, Keith and Helen Langdon. Degas. Oxford, United Kingdom: Phaidon, 1982. Reproduced: fig. 37
Vaizey, Marina. The Artist As Photographer. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1982. Reproduced: fig. 29
Shackelford, George T. M. Degas, the Dancers. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1984. Reproduced: p. 105-106
Larson, Dean M. Studying with the Masters: Lessons from Rubens, Velázquez, Turner, Degas, Monet, Sargent, Matisse. New York, NY: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1986. Reproduced: p. 65
Sutton, Denys. Edgar Degas, Life and Work. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1986. Mentioned: p. 183; Reproduced: p. 192
Kendall, Richard. Degas by Himself: Drawings, Prints, Paintings, Writings. London: Macdonald Orbis, 1987. Reproduced: p. 266-267
Thomson, Richard. The Private Degas. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 1987 Reproduced: p. 86-87
Henning, Edward B. Creativity in Art and Science, 1860-1960. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Published by the Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1987. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 99, no. 6
Loyrette, Henri. Degas. Paris: Fayard, 1991.
Eberle, Matthias. Max Liebermann, 1847-1935: Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde und Ölstudien. München: Hirmer, 1995. Reproduced: p. 542
Natter, Tobias G.and Julius H. Schoeps. Max Liebermann und die französischen Impressionisten. Düsseldorf: DuMont, 1997. Reproduced: p. 24, 203-294; Mentioned, p. 224, 239, 240, 252
Bilski, Emily D. Berlin Metropolis: Jews and the New Culture, 1890-1918. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Reproduced: fig. 21, p. 35
Louise d'Argencourt, Roger Diederen, Alisa Luxenberg, Patrick Noon, William H. Robinson, Ann Tzeutschler Lurie. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art 1999. I:218-221.
Rubin, Susan Goldman. Degas and the Dance: The Painter and the Petits Rats, Perfecting Their Art. New York, NY: Harry Abrams, 2002. Reproduced: p. 2-3
Burgess, Margaret, "The Colorful Mr. Hanna", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 45 no. 09, November 2005 Mentioned & reproduced: p. 5 archive.org
Rosenblum, Naomi. A World History of Photography. New York, NY: Abbeville Press Publishers, 2007. Reproduced: p. 255, fig. 301
Echte, Bernhard, and Petra Cordioli. Kunstsalon Bruno & Paul Cassirer: die Ausstellungen 1898-1901. Wädenswil, Switzerland: Nimbus, Kunst und Bücher, 2011. Mentioned: vol 5, p. 564-565
Kostenevich, A. G. Impressionism: Sensation & Inspiration: Highlights from the Hermitage. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Museumshop Hermitage Amsterdam, 2012. Reproduced: p. 88
Treasures of the Cleveland Museum of Art. London: Scala Books, 2012. Reproduced: p. 278-279
Faass, Martin, and Annegret Janda. Verlorene Schätze: die Kunstsammlung von Max Liebermann. Berlin: Liebermann-Villa am Wannsee: Nicolai, 2013. Mentioned: p. 23; Reproduced: p. 131, fig. 41
Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 293
DeVonyar, Jill. "Frieze of Dancers." In Degas: A Strange New Beauty. Jodi Hauptman, 202-226. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2016. Reproduced: p. 202-203, fig. 153
Bonafoux, Pascal. Les 100 tableaux qui racontent Degas. Vanves: Chêne, 2017. Reproduced: p. 170-171
Barbe-Gall, Françoise, and Edgar Degas. Pourquoi Degas est Degas. Paris: Éditions Le Deuxième Horizon, 2019. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 84-85
Arendsee, M., and M. Steinman-Arendsee. "Take the CAN disability aesthetics tour, at the Cleveland Museum of Art." CAN Journal (Winter 2019/20): 76-87. Mentioned: p. 81
Degas, Edgar, Adriano Pedrosa, Fernando Oliva, and Sofia Borges. Degas: Dance, Politics and Society. 2021, 196-197. Reproduced: pp. 196-197, fig. 136.
Kisiel, Marine. La Peinture Impressionniste et la Décoration. Paris: Le Passage, 2021. Mentioned: P. 228; Reproduced: P. 230-231, ill. 214
Paintings in the Cleveland Museum of Art: Picture Book No. 4 . [Cleveland]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1952. Reproduced: p. 36, 38 archive.org
Salsbury, Britany. “Reconsidering Degas: Common themes in depicting women's labor.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine vol. 63, no. 4 (2023): 8-9. Reproduced and Mentioned: P. 8.
Artlens Exhibition 2017. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 24, 2017-May 29, 2019).
Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (organizer) (March 22-July 24, 2016).
Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 21, 2007-January 13, 2008).
Masterworks from The Phillips Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 20-May 29, 2005).
Time Stands Still: Muybridge and the Instantaneous Photography Movement. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (February 15-May 16, 2004).
Degas: Beyond Impressionism. The Art Institute of Chicago (September 28, 1996-January 12, 1997).
Creativity in Art and Science, 1860-1960. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 16-November 8, 1987).
"Masterpieces" Memorial Exhibition of Adele R. Levy. Wildenstein & Co., New York, NY (April 6-May 7, 1961).
In Memoriam: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr.. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 4-April 7, 1958).
Art: The International Language. The Cleveland Museum of Art (October 2-November 4, 1956).
Exhibition of the Month: Art is Long. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 14-June 7, 1948).
Works by Edgar Degas. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (February 5 to March 9, 1947).
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (October 1941-October 1942).
Honderd Jaar Fransche Kunst. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (1938).
Degas. Orangerie des Tuileries, Paris, France (1937).
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