# Little Dancer Aged Fourteen > Edgar Degas - 1878-1881 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/edgar-degas/degas-little-dancer-aged-fourteen/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-27 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Edgar Degas - **Date:** 1878-1881 - **Medium:** Pigmented beeswax, clay, metal armature, rope, paintbrushes, human hair, silk and linen ribbon, cotton faille bodice, cotton and silk tutu, linen slippers, on wooden base - **Dimensions:** Overall without base: 98.9 x 34.7 x 35.2 cm (38 15/16 x 13 11/16 x 13 7/8 in.). Weight 49 lb. (22.226 kg) - **Object type:** Sculpture - **Period:** Impressionism, 1874-1886 - **Current location:** National Gallery of Art, Washington, West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G3 - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A two-thirds life-size figure of a fourteen-year-old ballet student, modelled in pigmented beeswax over a lead armature packed with rope, wood and old paintbrushes, and dressed in a real cotton bodice, a real tulle tutu, real linen slippers and a wig of human hair. Degas showed it in a glass case at the sixth impressionist exhibition in 1881. It was the only sculpture he exhibited in his lifetime, and the critics called it ugly.It is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, acquired by Paul Mellon in 1956 and bequeathed in 1999. It has never been sold at auction. Everything sold at auction under this title is a posthumous bronze, cast from plaster after Degas died in 1917 by the Hebrard foundry in Paris, in an edition lettered A to T with two further casts marked HER and HER.D. Those bronzes have made 13.3 million pounds, 15.8 million pounds, 41.6 million dollars and 25 million pounds.A second family of Little Dancer bronzes exists, cast from the 1990s onward at the Valsuani foundry from a plaster whose history before 1955 nobody can document, and which differs from the Washington wax in body, pose, face and hair. Most Degas specialists reject them. Seventy-four of them were given to Purdue University in 2023. This record is built around that distinction, because at this level of the market a cast letter and a foundry stamp are the difference between eight figures and five. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1878-1917** The artist, Paris `[documented]` (origin) Modelled 1878-1881 from the Paris Opera ballet student Marie Genevieve van Goethem, born 7 June 1865, and exhibited by Degas at the sixth impressionist exhibition, 35 boulevard des Capucines, Paris, 1881, catalogue number 12, as Petite Danseuse de quatorze ans (statuette en cire). It remained in his studio for the following thirty-six years and was never shown again in his lifetime. Louisine Havemeyer saw it in his studio in 1903 and remembered how woolly the dark hair appeared, indicating the wax had already darkened. - **1917-1929 or later** The artist's five heirs `[documented]` (inheritance) Rene De Gas, the artist's last surviving brother, and four surviving children of his sister Marguerite: Jeanne Fevre, acting also for her sister Madeleine, a Carmelite nun; Henri Fevre; and Gabriel Fevre. On 13 May 1918 they contracted with the Hebrard foundry for reproduction in bronze; the contract provided that the original figures became the property of the foundry. - **before 1929 or after 1931-1937** A. A. Hebrard, Paris `[disputed]` (transfer, date not established) The National Gallery's systematic catalogue records that the wax was possibly sold separately from the other lifetime works before 1929 or after 1931 to A. A. Hebrard. The Gallery's public object record simply gives Hebrard as the next owner after the heirs. The transaction, its date and its price are not documented in the sources consulted. Hebrard died in 1937. - **1937-1955** Mme A. A. Hebrard and/or Nelly Hebrard, Paris `[disputed]` (inheritance) The Gallery's object record names the daughter, Nelly Hebrard. The systematic catalogue is careful to write the widow and/or the daughter, which is an unresolved point rather than a formula. Through this period the surviving waxes lay in the foundry cellar and, after the foundry closed in 1937, in Hebrard's house. Scholars generally assumed they had been destroyed in the moulding until Nelly Hebrard announced in 1955 that most had survived. - **1955-1956** M. Knoedler and Company, Inc., New York `[documented]` (consignment) Consigned in 1955 with most of the other lifetime works and exhibited that year at Knoedler as Edgar Degas 1834-1917: Original Wax Sculptures, catalogue number 20, under the posthumous title Ballet Dancer, Dressed. Albino Palazzolo is reported to have reworked and strengthened the waxes before shipment to the United States. - **1956-1999** Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia `[documented]` (purchase) Purchased 25 May 1956. The price is not published in the sources consulted. Mellon's conservator Joseph Ternbach and the sculptor John McCarty carried out further restoration on the Mellon waxes. Mr. and Mrs. Mellon began giving Degas sculpture to the National Gallery of Art in 1985. - **1999-present** National Gallery of Art, Washington `[documented]` (bequest) Bequest of Paul Mellon, 1999. Accession number 1999.80.28, credit line Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon. On view in the West Building, Ground Floor, Gallery G3 as of August 2026. The object has never been offered at public auction. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - THE OBJECT IN THIS RECORD HAS NEVER BEEN AT AUCTION. The wax original, National Gallery of Art 1999.80.28, has been in institutional or single-private hands since 1956 and passed to the museum by bequest. Every result listed below is a POSTHUMOUS BRONZE CAST of the same composition, made after Degas's death, and is included only because the market treats these prices as prices for the Little Dancer. They are not. - **2000** Sotheby's, - Estimate: not established - Hammer: not established - With premium: reported c. GBP 7.7 m - Bronze, the cast marked HER. The existence of a Sotheby's London sale of this cast in 2000 is recorded in the provenance of the 2026 Sotheby's lot, which is a fetched primary source. The price of about 7.7 million pounds comes from secondary reporting of the 2026 sale and has not been verified against the 2000 catalogue. Treat the figure as indicative. - **2004-02-03** Sotheby's, - Estimate: not established - Hammer: not established - With premium: reported c. GBP 5 m - Bronze, the Harriman cast, London, lot 37. The sale and lot number are recorded in the provenance of the 2009 Sotheby's lot, a fetched primary source. The buyer was Sir John Madejski and the price of about 5 million pounds comes from secondary reporting; it has not been verified against the 2004 catalogue. - **2009-02-03** Sotheby's, - Estimate: GBP 9,000,000 - 12,000,000 - Hammer: GBP 11,800,000 - With premium: GBP 13,257,250 - Bronze with muslin skirt and satin hair ribbon on a wooden base, 105 cm including base, inscribed Degas and stamped A.A. Hebrard cire perdue on the base. No cast letter is given in the catalogue entry consulted. London, Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale, lot 8. Provenance: Marie Harriman Gallery in the 1930s; Mr and Mrs William Averell Harriman; Pamela Churchill Harriman to at least 1988; Wildenstein and Co.; Sotheby's London 3 February 2004, lot 37. Dollar equivalents of about 19.1 million circulated. This is a different cast from the one sold in 2015 and 2026. - **2015-06-24** Sotheby's, - Estimate: GBP 10,000,000 - 15,000,000 - Hammer: not separated in sources - With premium: GBP 15.8 m reported; c. USD 24.8 m - Bronze, numbered HER, stamped A.A. HEBRARD CIRE PERDUE, 101.3 cm including base. London, Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale, lot 14. The catalogue records the count of twenty-nine identified casts: twenty-seven bronze and two plaster, plus the modele bronze and the original wax. Reporting does not separate hammer from premium. This result stood as the Degas auction record until 2022. The same cast returned in 2026. Note that every eight-figure result for this composition is a Hebrard cast: Richard Kendall observed in 2012 that the contested Valsuani bronzes had failed to persuade either the Degas specialists or the major auction houses, and no Valsuani cast appears anywhere in this table. - **2022-05-12** Christie's, New York, The Collection of Anne H. Bass, sale 21517 (sale id 29838), Rockefeller Center, 12 May 2022, 12 lots, lot 2C - Estimate: USD 20,000,000 - 30,000,000 - Hammer: USD 36,000,000 DERIVED, not published, and now on a named schedule. Christie's New York Conditions of Sale as captured by the Wayback Machine on 15 May 2022: 26 per cent of hammer up to and including USD 1,000,000, 20 per cent of the part over 1,000,000 up to 6,000,000, 14.5 per cent of the part above 6,000,000. 1,260,000 + 1.20 x 5,000,000 + 1.145 x 30,000,000 = 41,610,000; hammer 36,000,000, a round bidding figure. Label stays DERIVED. - With premium: USD 41,610,000 premium-inclusive, as printed on the house lot page ('Price realised USD 41,610,000') and carried in the sale's lot-search JSON (price_realised 41610000). Sale-level check: the 12 lot figures sum to USD 363,087,500, the '363.1 million' the record already carries. - Lot page read 2026-09-16 at rung 1, HTTP 200, in full; lot-search JSON read the same day; the two agree. Catalogued as: bronze with brown patina, muslin skirt and satin hair ribbon, on wooden base, stamped with foundry mark 'A.A.HEBRARD CIRE PERDUE' on her left thigh, height excluding base 102.9 cm, original wax model executed c. 1879-1881, 'this bronze version cast in 1927'. No cast letter is printed on the page, which answers the record's remark that none appears in the reporting: the house does not give one either. Provenance as printed by the house: Mr and Mrs Charles Liebman, New York (commissioned from the Hebrard foundry, August 1927); their sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 7 December 1955, lot 41; M. Knoedler and Co., New York (acquired at that sale); Mrs Charles S. Payson, New York (acquired from Knoedler, 7 December 1955); Sandra Payson, New York (by descent, 1975); Wildenstein and Co., New York; acquired from Wildenstein by Anne H. Bass, 17 May 1985. The Parke-Bernet 1955 sale is a fifth auction appearance of this cast not on the record and is left for the record desk. - **2026-06-24** Sotheby's, - Estimate: GBP 18,000,000 - 25,000,000 - Hammer: not separated in sources - With premium: GBP 25,000,000 - 25,100,000 reported; c. USD 33.1 - 33.3 m - Bronze, numbered HER, stamped A.A. HEBRARD CIRE PERDUE, conceived circa 1879-81 and cast from 1922, 101.3 cm. London, Masterpieces from the Lewis Collection, lot 5, from the collection of Joe Lewis. Sold on the high estimate. Reporting gives both 25 and 25.1 million pounds and does not separate hammer from premium. The sale realised 296.3 million pounds, a record for a single-owner collection in Europe. This is the same cast sold in 2015 and in 2000. ## Open questions - When and how did the wax pass from Degas's heirs to A. A. Hebrard personally? The National Gallery's systematic catalogue records only that it was possibly sold separately from the other lifetime works before 1929 or after 1931. The 1918 contract made the originals the property of the foundry, but the individual transfer of this piece is not documented. - Is the present tutu the one exhibited in 1881? The Gallery's conservators note that the creases and wax drips on the tulle appear to match both the 1917-1918 inventory photographs and the 1955-1956 photographs, and raise the possibility that the extant assemblage is original. Richard Kendall reads an undated clipping about the 1924 exhibition as evidence the costume was renovated twice. No conclusive documentation has been found. - Which plaster served as the casting master for the Hebrard bronze edition? Arthur Beale argues for the Joslyn cast on mould lines, armature construction and measurement, and John Rewald's 1971 letter suggests the National Gallery cast was chosen for its colour. The question has not been settled by an independent study in the sources consulted. - Why is the Norton Simon bronze inscribed MODELE about four per cent smaller than a true master should be? Beale identifies it as a surmoulage carrying a master's inscription. How and when that inscription came to be applied to a second-generation cast is unexplained. - Where were the seventy-five Valsuani plasters before 1955? No documentation of any kind predates their reported arrival at the foundry that year. Benatov's own account began in 1955 and he initially thought they might be copies. - Did Albert Bartholome ever cast a Degas wax in plaster during the artist's lifetime? Gregory Hedberg asserts he did and builds the Valsuani case on it. Therese Burollet, the leading Bartholome authority, told ARTnews that nothing in the letters, archives, press or family tradition supports it. Hedberg calls her statement categorically false. - How many bronze casts of the Little Dancer exist? Beale writes of some twenty-three or more and mentions an extra cast marked with Palazzolo's monogram sold in December 1970; auction catalogues cite Czestochowski and Pingeot's count of twenty-nine casts, of which twenty-seven bronze and two plaster, plus the MODELE bronze and the wax; the Hebrard scheme provides for twenty-two. The figures have not been reconciled here. - Were seventy-three or seventy-four figures cast by Hebrard? The National Gallery and Beale give seventy-four; Patricia Failing writes seventy-three. The discrepancy runs through the literature. - Which cast letters were the bronzes sold in 2009 and in 2022? The Sotheby's 2009 catalogue entry consulted records only that the base is inscribed Degas and stamped A.A. Hebrard cire perdue, without a letter. No cast letter for the Anne Bass cast appears in the reporting consulted. - When did Paul Mellon acquire the National Gallery plaster from John Rewald? The Gallery's provenance says April 1968; Arthur Beale writes that Mellon purchased it from Rewald in 1961. One of the two is wrong. - When did Marie van Goethem die? A death date of 7 December 1935 is now given in reference sources that simultaneously state no trace of her later life or death has been found. The identification has not been verified here. ## Sources - [1] National Gallery of Art, object record for Edgar Degas, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, 1878-1881, accession 1999.80.28, including the full medium line, dimensions, inscription, provenance with footnotes citing Pingeot and Sara Campbell, and the 1881 exhibition entry. - [2] Shelley Sturman and Daphne Barbour, 'Technical Notes: Little Dancer Aged Fourteen', in Modeling Movement: Degas's Dancers, National Gallery of Art online editions, published 24 December 2024. Armature, core, wax analysis, bodice, slippers, tutu, hair, condition, and the systematic-catalogue provenance. - [3] Suzanne Glover Lindsay, 'Original State: Little Dancer Aged Fourteen', in Modeling Movement: Degas's Dancers, National Gallery of Art online editions. The 1881 critical reception, the vitrine and the 1880 empty case, the titles, and the Tutu Wars. - [4] National Gallery of Art, object record for Edgar Degas, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, plaster cast possibly 1920/1921, accession 1985.64.62, with provenance from Hebrard through Knoedler and John Rewald to Paul Mellon. - [5] Arthur Beale, 'Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen: The Search for the Lost Modele', in Richard Kendall, Degas and the Little Dancer, exhibition catalogue, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha (New Haven and London, 1998). The MODELE set, the casting method, the Norton Simon surmoulage, the Joslyn plaster and the Palazzolo interviews. - [6] Patricia Failing, 'We Need to Talk About Purdue's Newly Donated Degas Sculptures', ARTnews, 22 May 2023. The case against the Valsuani casts, the Purdue gift and its appraisal, and Therese Burollet on Bartholome. - [7] Walter F. Maibaum, 'Questions and Answers: The Sculptures of Edgar Degas', The Degas Sculpture Project Ltd, 10 April 2019. PARTISAN SOURCE, cited only for the case made by the promoters of the Valsuani casts and for uncontested chronology. Maibaum is the dealer selling these bronzes. - [8] The Art Newspaper, 'Scholars absent from State Hermitage Museum conference with controversial Degas bronzes on the agenda', 1 June 2012. The boycott by Campbell, Chevillot, Czestochowski, Kendall and Pingeot, and Kendall on the market's response. - [9] Metropolitan Museum of Art, object record for The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer, cast by A. A. Hebrard, modelled 1881, cast 1922, accession 29.100.370, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929, with the Huysmans quotation. - [10] Sotheby's, lot 8, Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale, London, 3 February 2009. Catalogue entry for the Harriman cast: inscription, foundry mark, height, estimate and provenance. - [11] Sotheby's, lot 14, Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale, London, 24 June 2015. Catalogue entry for the cast numbered HER, with the count of twenty-nine identified casts. - [12] Sotheby's, lot 5, Masterpieces from the Lewis Collection, London, 24 June 2026. Catalogue entry for the cast numbered HER: foundry mark, conception circa 1879-81, cast from 1922, height 101.3 cm, estimate 18 to 25 million pounds, and provenance recording prior Sotheby's London sales in 2000 and 2015. - [13] George Nelson, '$63.5 M. Modigliani Nude from Joe Lewis Collection Leads Sotheby's London Double-Header Auction Totaling $520.7 M.', ARTnews, 24 June 2026. The Degas result on the high estimate and the sale totals. - [14] Carlie Porterfield, 'Degas' Little Dancer Fetches Record-Breaking $41.6 Million In Auction Of Late Ballet Patron's Art Collection', Forbes, 12 May 2022. The record, the previous 2015 record at 24.8 million dollars, and the August 1927 commission. - [15] Galerie Magazine, 'Sale of the Collection of Anne H. Bass Brings in $363 Million'. The 41,610,000 dollar result and the 363.1 million dollar sale total. - [16] Wikipedia, 'Little Dancer of Fourteen Years'. TERTIARY SOURCE, used only for the 2009 sale total and the Madejski purchase price and flagged for replacement with the Sotheby's 2004 and 2009 result records and with Czestochowski and Pingeot, Degas Sculptures: Catalogue Raisonne of the Bronzes (Memphis, 2002). - [17] Wikipedia, 'Marie van Goethem'. TERTIARY SOURCE, used for the model's birth, family, entry to the Opera school and dismissal, and flagged for replacement with the Paris Opera archives and with Martine Kahane et al., 'Enquete sur la Petite Danseuse de quatorze ans de Degas', 48/14: La Revue du Musee d'Orsay 7 (Autumn 1998). - [18] National Gallery of Art, exhibition page 'Degas's Little Dancer' (accessed 2026-08-07). Confirms the sculpture remains on view at the National Gallery of Art, presented in a dedicated in-house exhibition with 14 related Degas works from the Gallery's own collection. - [19] Christie's, 'Lot 2C, Edgar Degas, Petite danseuse de quatorze ans - The Collection of Anne H. Bass, sale 21517, 12 May 2022'. Sale, lot, estimate, premium-inclusive price USD 41,610,000, foundry mark, casting date and the Liebman to Bass provenance including the 1955 Parke-Bernet sale. Accessed 2026-09-16. - [20] christies.com, web page cited for the Christie's, New York sale of 2022-05-12. - [21] Christie's via Internet Archive, 'Conditions of Sale, New York, as in force May 2022 (Wayback Machine capture of 15 May 2022)'. The 26 / 20 / 14.5 per cent schedule behind the DERIVED hammer of USD 36,000,000. Accessed 2026-09-16. - [22] Martine Kahane, Delphine Pinasa, Wilfried Piollet and Sara Campbell, 'Enquete sur la Petite Danseuse de quatorze ans de Degas', 48/14: La Revue du Musee d'Orsay 7 (Autumn 1998), 48-71, in the authorised abbreviated English translation. Used for the model's family reconstruction, the Paris Opera wage record in Archives nationales series AJ 13 (838, 842, 840, 841, 905, 1005A), and the April 1882 dismissal note AJ 13 905A in Pluque's hand countersigned by Vaucorbeil, which states no cause. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. 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