Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas, 'Peasant Girls bathing in the Sea at Dusk', about 1875-76
About the work
Overview
While Degas sketched seascapes on the coast of Normandy in summer 1869, this unfinished, heavily reworked painting combining elements from those earlier studies probably was executed several years later in the artist’s studio in Paris. Bold in composition and unusual in technique, it reveals Degas’s willingness to experiment.
The girl’s dark silhouettes cut across the picture surface, their naked bodies assailed by invigorating waves. Clutching hands like a chain of paper dolls, they enter the sea in a jerky yet choreographic movement, facing the setting sun. With its unconventional appearance, shifts in scale and broad treatment the picture counts among Degas’s most progressive works of the mid-1870s. The painting appears in the catalogues of the second (1876) and third (1877) Impressionist Exhibitions in Paris but as no critic in either year comments on what would have been one of the most daring works on view, at the last minute the artist may have chosen not to submit it. It remained with him for the rest of his life.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Peasant Girls bathing in the Sea at Dusk
- Artist
- Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas
- Artist dates
- 1834 - 1917
- Date made
- about 1875-76
- Medium and support
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 65 × 81 cm
- Inscription summary
- signed
- Acquisition credit
- On loan from a private collection
- Inventory number
- L1280
- Location
- Room 43
- Image copyright
- On loan from a private collection
- Collection
- Main Collection
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
Images
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