Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

Cast after 1919 (The original wax model executed circa 1896-1911), Femme se coiffant features one of the themes that Degas was fascinated with and greatly explored during the latter part of the Nineteenth Century, that of the woman à sa toilette.

Although titled Femme se coiffant, this voluptuous figure is actually drying her hair with a towel which hangs either side of her head. Degas produced several pastels and drawings on the same theme of a nude woman seen from the back standing with her hair falling heavily downwards. The subject of a bather, or in this instance a woman arranging her hair, grew in importance for Degas as his career progressed and ‘It was in his passionate search for movement that were ‘created all the statuettes of dancers doing arabesques, bowing, rubbing their knees, putting their stockings on, etc. and of women arranging their hair’ (Rewald, 1944, p. 11). In this sculpture Degas skilfully captures the woman caught in a pose which represents one single moment, as if frozen in a photograph.

Contrary to the spontaneity of the moment depicted in this work, many of Degas’ subjects were models, who would hold single poses for a long time in order to give the artist the chance to lend them a sense of movement, which is implied here in the motion of drying her hair. This contradiction is explained by Degas himself, 'I assure you that no art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament - temperament is the word - I know nothing' (Degas, quoted in R. Kendall, ed., Degas by Himself: Drawings Prints Paintings Writings, London, 1987, p. 311).