Little Dancer Update
Edgar Degas' famous sculpture Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans (The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years), which was cast in bronze after his death (CLICK) fetched a record £13.3m ($19.2m) at Sotheby's London auction yesterday. I notice BBC News (title link) studiously avoids giving a correct translation into English of the French title, which makes a point of the dancer's age. Auntie merely refers to her as "little" or "young", presumably because she regards the French title as too salacious! ("I say, Carruthers. we can't mention the gel's age like those bloody Froggies do. We'll upset the Aussie PM.")
posted by Unknown @ 4.2.09
3 comments
3 Comments:
PS The BBC account of this work is not in accordance with my sources .
Hi again, Robert.
Blogger seems to be getting its knickers in a twist. I've just posted your first message and my reply to it and neither of them has shown up!
I no longer trust the BBC. It's hopeless on art and science. (How many times did it refer to the MMR jab as "controversial"? And how many mums did it deter from having baby vaccinated every time it used that word? And all based on 10 subjects tested by some doctor untrained in scientific methodology, who was later brought before the Medical Council. And now we have the threat of a measles epidemic!)
Its reporting on badgers and bovine TB has been one-sided and completely misinformed.
If you can't trust the BBC on hard science, you can't trust it on anything, least of all something as subjective as art. It's a fully paid-up member of the Brit. Anti-art Establishment and promotes tripe as art.
Blogger threw a wobbler yesterday and sent me confirmation that the following comments had been posted, but they hadn't! So here's Robert's first message to me and my reply.
Robert:
But do we actually know how many were cast? Hundreds or is it thousands? He had it in his studio for many years made of wax. The colouring of the wax was done in such a way to suggest stage lighting and she even had coloured lips! It is worth reading the full story, including the documentary one of the TV Channels did on it. The model herself had a sad life.
Coxsoft Art:
Hi, Robert
I read somewhere that the original wax sculpture had a tutu of real material. True or false? This work seems to be the stuff of myth and legend. No idea how many were cast.
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