The devotion with which Edgar Degas observed Marie van Goethem (French, 1865–unknown), a young student of the Paris Opéra ballet school and model for his beloved wax figure Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, is evident in the extraordinary number of surviving preparatory sketches in charcoal and pastel, as well as this preliminary sculptural study. In the final version, the figure wears a bodice with an attached gauze tutu, linen ballet slippers, and a silk hair ribbon. The smaller bronze rendition presented here illustrates the awkwardness of adolescence that can be masked by clothing. Ballet dancers were a favorite subject of the artist. Drawn to their expressive gestures and gentle natures, Degas once wrote to a friend, “It is the movement of things and people which amuses and even consoles me.”

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