Group of Dancers

This enigmatic drawing on panel has never before been published. The stamps and numbers on the verso indicate that it was sold by the great French dealer Paul Durand-Ruel during Degas's lifetime. But because the drawing's early provenance is not known, and because of the odd materials and somewhat awkward manner of drawing, its authenticity has occasionally been doubted. However, the exhibition labels and the panel's clear relationship to well-catalogued works make its attribution to Degas a certainty.

Degas was fascinated throughout the mid-1890s with scenes of dances out-of-doors, and his famous sequence of so-called Russian dancers with Slavic costumes (Lemoisne 1946, vol. 3, nos. 1181-94) has long been admired by connoisseurs and critics. Less well studied are three "civilized" counterparts to the "peasant" dancers. The Reves panel, which was unknown to Lemoisne, is an elaboration of a pastel, also called "Group of Dancers," that was owned by Degas's brother René de Gas and included in his posthumous sale of 1927. The René de Gas sheet includes four of the five figures of the Reves panel in identical positions, and places this group in the same classical landscape with a distant background of the Acropolis in Athens. We know that Degas never visited Greece, and clearly we are to believe that the setting for these dancers is a painted backdrop. In fact, their costumes and the white arm of the dancer on the far right disguise what must be the lower edge of the backdrop where it meets the floor of the stage. By employing this device, Degas created the illusion that the dancers are actually "in" the landscape.

The background relates without question to the landscape monotypes that Degas made in the years around 1890, as well as to the numerous out-of-door genre scenes of the mid- and late 1880s. In these late works, Degas asserted the sheer artificiality of his art, which was a quintessentially urban art form, by evoking various imaginary landscapes from his Parisian studio. Here, in the Reves panel, we travel through Degas's imagination to the distant setting of Athens. The painter was careful to let us know that the Athens of his drawing was not the classical-era city, since the Parthenon and its attendant buildings are in ruins; nor is it modern Athens, whose buildings encircle the Acropolis. Instead, it is a dream or a memory - a visual evocation - of the great ancient city, enlivened by the classical poses of Degas's beloved dancers.

"Impressionist Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection," page 121