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| Edgar Degas At the Milliner's 1862 pastel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
"Mary Cassatt was the model for the customer in this work. She purportedly said that she posed for Degas 'only once in a while when he finds the movement difficult and the model cannot seem to get his idea.' This pastel was shown in the final Impressionist exhibition in 1886."
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| Edgar Degas The Rehearsal Onstage ca. 1874 pastel over ink drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
"There are three similar versions of this scene, and their precise relationship has bedeviled scholars for decades. The largest, painted in grisaille (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), appeared in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. The two others, tentatively dated the same year, are in the Metropolitan's collection. Of the two versions, this one [directly above] is more freely executed, indicating that it was probably made second. Both works were executed over an ink drawing on paper, an unusual practice for Degas."
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| Edgar Degas The Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage ca. 1874 pastel, oil and watercolor over ink drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
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| Edgar Degas At the Café-concert (The Song of the Dog) or Music-hall Singer 1875-77 pastel and gouache over monotype on joined paper private collection formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
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| Edgar Degas Dancers at the Bar 1877-79 pastel private collection formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
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| Edgar Degas Dance Lesson ca. 1879 pastel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
"Degas made various adjustments to this composition, presumably to accommodate the violinist in his final design. He added strips of paper at the top and to the right, and there is evidence to suggest that he may have altered the dancer's pose. A pastel study for the musician is also in the Museum's collection. The present work was formerly owned by Gustave Caillebotte, who probably bought it from or soon after the Impressionist exhibition of 1879. In 1894 he bequeathed it to Renoir, who sold it shortly thereafter [through Durand-Ruel to the Havemeyers]."
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| Edgar Degas Two Ballet Girls ca. 1879 pastel Shelburne Museum, Vermont formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
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| Edgar Degas The Artist's Cousin, probably Mrs. William Bell (Mathilde Musson) 1873 pastel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
"The sitter for this likeness is thought to be Mathilde Musson, one of Degas's cousins in New Orleans. Degas made a number of pictures featuring Mathilde and her two sisters when he visited the family during the fall and winter of 1872-73. The women can be difficult to tell apart, but the tilt of the head and the intelligent, sidelong glance seen here closely resemble the figure of Mathilde in another, more finished picture (Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen). Mathilde was then a new mother, and the artist complained, 'to make a cousin sit for you who is feeding an imp of two months is quite hard work.'"
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| Edgar Degas Dance Examination 1880 pastel Denver Art Museum formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
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| Edgar Degas Waiting 1880-82 pastel Getty Museum and Norton Simon Art Foundation formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
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| Edgar Degas Bather 1885 pastel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
"When Degas showed his "suite of nudes," including this pastel, at the eighth and final Impressionist exhibition in 1886, critics viciously attacked the ungainly poses of his bathers. After the exhibition Degas gave the picture to Mary Cassatt in exchange for her painting Girl Arranging Her Hair (National Gallery of Art, Washington). Louisine Havemeyer eventually acquired both works."
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| Edgar Degas Woman having hair combed ca. 1886-88 pastel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
"No doubt Degas intended to include this work in the 1886 Impressionist exhibition among the nudes he described in the catalogue as "women bathing, washing themselves, combing their hair or having it combed," since it is his only pastel of the mid-1880s of a woman having her hair combed. Executed in large format and meticulously finished, this nude – reminiscent of Rembrandt's famous Bathsheba at her Bath in the Louvre – may not have been completed in time for the exhibition, or else it may have been excluded deliberately for reasons unknown."
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| Edgar Degas Dancer tying her slipper 1887 pastel private collection formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
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| Edgar Degas Woman with a towel 1894 or 1898 pastel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
"Degas used his fingers, brushes, and sharp implements to smudge, scrape, and polish this pastel, creating a sense of movement and texture, and revealing layers of brilliant color. Black outlines drawn over the pastel emphasize the contrapposto turn of the muscular and monumental nude. The date Degas inscribed on the sheet has traditionally been read as 1894 but 1898 is more likely."
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| Edgar Degas Racehorses in a landscape or Racehorses in training 1894 pastel Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
– quoted passages from curator's notes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York