
Not on display
- Artist
- Edgar Degas 1834–1917
- Original title
- Tête de femme
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 175 × 197 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Presented by A.E. Anderson through the Art Fund 1924
- Reference
- N03833
Display caption
Little is known of the history of this painting or the woman's identity. The exceptionally small size of the work indicates that it may be a study, or even a fragment from a larger canvas. Unusually for Degas, the painting itself offers few clues about the identity of the model or the significance of her melancholic gaze. It is possible that it should be seen one of a number of small studies of female figures executed by Degas in the early 1870s on the theme of different emotions and moods. These pictures were part of Degas' project to examine and record different aspects of female experience in public and private life.
Gallery label, August 2004
Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.
Catalogue entry
Edgar Degas 1834-1917
N03833 Tête de Femme (Head of a Woman) c.1873
Not inscribed
Oil on canvas mounted on millboard, 6 7/8 x 7 3/4 (17.5 x 20) >br>Presented by A.E. Anderson through the NACF 1924
Prov: [?M. Lafond]; with Leicester Galleries, London, 1922; A.E. Anderson, London
Lit: P.A. Lemoisne, Degas et son Oeuvre (Paris 1946), No.330, Vol.2, p.168, repr. p.169 (dated c.1873); Franco Russoli and Fiorella Minervino, L'Opera Completa di Degas (Milan 1970), No.369, p.104, repr. p.103
This head may have been cut down from a larger canvas. In the Leicester Galleries' records the name of the previous owner is almost illegible but looks like Lafond: this would probably be Paul Lafond, a friend of Degas' and author of an authoritative study on his work.
Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.145, reproduced p.145
Explore
- people(22,059)
- body(4,885)
-
- head / face(2,504)
You might like
-
Edouard Manet Woman with a Cat
c.1880 -
Edgar Degas Head of a Woman
c.1874 -
Claude Monet Poplars on the Epte
1891 -
Claude Monet Woman Seated on a Bench
c.1874 -
Alfred Sisley The Bridge at Sèvres
1877 -
Edgar Degas Woman at her Toilet
c.1894 -
Alfred Sisley The Small Meadows in Spring
1880 -
Alfred Sisley The Path to the Old Ferry at By
1880 -
Jean-Louis Forain The Tub
c.1886–7 -
Camille Pissarro Portrait of Felix Pissarro
1881 -
Camille Pissarro The Little Country Maid
1882 -
Camille Pissarro The Pork Butcher
1883 -
Berthe Morisot Girl on a Divan
c.1885 -
Edgar Degas Woman in a Tub
c.1883 -
Odilon Redon Profile of a Woman with a Vase of Flowers
c.1895–1905