Feast your eyes on...
October 19 2011
Picture: Christie's
...this, at $25-35m, a cast of Petite danseuse de quatorze ans by Degas in the 1st Nov Impressionist sale in New York. From Christie's catalogue:
Petite danseuse de quatorze ans is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and important sculptures of the modern era. A candid depiction of a young dancer at two-thirds life-size, the Petite danseuse is the largest, most technically ambitious, and most iconographically complex of Degas's sculptures, and the only one that he ever exhibited during his lifetime. It therefore stands apart from the remainder of Degas's sculptural output, which numbered more than a hundred and fifty extant figures or fragments at his death, and represents the pinnacle of his achievement in this medium, to which he devoted a great deal of time and energy over the course of his career.
This is one of 38 casts. The ex-Sir John Madejski cast sold at Sotheby's in 2009 for £13.25m.
