Edgar Degas

French, 1834-1917

Mlle Fiocre dans le ballet "La Source" (Mademoiselle Fiocre in the ballet "La Source")

Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917). Mlle Fiocre dans le ballet La Source (Mademioselle Fiocre in the Ballet Le Source), 1866–68. Oil on canvas, 43 1/2 x 36 inches (110.5 x 91.4 cm). Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Gift of Paul Rosenberg and Co., 1958 (1958:2).

Public Domain

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Public Domain

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

Public Domain

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

Mlle Fiocre dans le ballet "La Source" (Mademoiselle Fiocre in the ballet "La Source"), 1866-1868

Artwork Details

Currently on View

Materials

oil on canvas

Measurements

support: 32 x 25 3/8 inches (81.28 x 64.4525 cm); framed: 43 1/4 x 36 9/16 x 4 3/8 inches (109.86 x 92.87 x 11.11 cm)

Collection Buffalo AKG Art Museum

Credit

Gift of Paul Rosenberg and Co., 1958

Accession ID

1958:2

This work is one of several studies Edgar Degas made when working toward the finished painting—a scene inspired by the ballet La Source, a woodland fantasy set in a mythical Middle East. These were the first works in which the artist took up the motif of dancers and theatrical performance. Here, he portrays Eugénie Fiocre (French, 1845–1908), a renowned dancer who rose from humble origins to become the principal ballerina in the Paris Opéra, as Nourreda, the ballet’s lead role, in an extravagant production he saw in Paris in 1866. Rather than depict Fiocre at the height of a performance, Degas instead chose to capture her in a more private moment of contemplation during a rehearsal, seated alongside another figure in a nonspecific landscape. The artist executed the scene’s dark washes and watery reflections in a fluid, open brushwork that lends itself to the overall somber tone of the composition. 

Label from Humble and Human: An Exhibition in Honor of Ralph C. Wilson, Jr., February 2–May 26, 2019