About This Artwork

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas
French, 1834-1917

Retiring, c. 1883

Pastel, with stumping, on cream wove paper, laid down on board
364 x 430 mm
Inscribed recto, lower left of center, in charcoal: "Degas"
Bequest of Mrs. Sterling Morton, 1969.331

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

The Art Institute of Chicago, "Masterpieces from Private Collections in Chicago," July 12-August 31, 1969, cat. 4.

The Art Institute of Chicago, "Degas in The Art Institute of Chicago," July 19-September 23, 1984, pp. 138-139, cat. 66 (ill.), cat. by Richard R. Brettell and Suzanne Folds McCullagh.

The Art Institute of Chicago, September 26, 1995-April 24, 1996 (Allerton galleries).

London, The National Gallery, "Degas: Beyond Impressionism," May 22-August 26, 1996; traveled to The Art Institute of Chicago, September 28, 1996-January 5, 1997.

The Art Institute of Chicago, August 27, 2002-March 6, 2003 (Allerton galleries).

The Art Institute of Chicago, March 2004-September 29, 2005 (Allerton galleries).

Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, "Degas and the Nude", October 9 2011 - February 5, 2012, pp. 115-116, fig. 126, cat. by George T. M. Shackelford, Xavier Rey, et.al.; traveled to Paris, Musée d'Orsay, March 12 - July 5, 2012.

Publication History

Ambroise Vollard, Degas (Paris, 1924), p. 24 (ill.).

Wilhelm Hausenstein, "Der Geist des Edgar Degas," Panetheon 7 (April 1931), p. 161 (ill.).

Georges Rivière, M. Degas, Bourgeois de Paris (Paris, 1935), p. 157 (ill.).

Paul André Lemoisne, Degas et son Oeuvre 3 (Paris, 1946), pp. 422-426, no. 743 (ill.).

The Art Institute of Chicago Annual Report (1969-1970), p. 24.

The Art Institute of Chicago, "Mrs. Morton’s Bequest," The Art Institute of Chicago Calendar 64:3 (January 1970), p. 2.

Fiorella Minervino, L’Opera Completa di Degas (Milan, 1970), no. 896.

Sandra Grung, Supplement to Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1971), p. 28.

Harold Joachim and Sandra Haller Olsen, French Drawings and Sketchbooks of the Nineteenth Century 2 (Chicago, 1979), p. 42, no. 2F8.

Jean Sutherland Boggs, Degas (Chicago, 1996), pp. 51, 54, 97 (ill.), and 110, pl. 26.

Charles Harrison, Painting the Difference (Chicago, 2004).

Katherine Rose, Degas, Sickert, and Toulouse-Lautrec (London, 2005).

Ownership History

Sold by Bernheim-Jeune and Company, Paris, to Durand-Ruel, Paris, June 24, 1910 [letter from Charles Durand-Ruel dated May 10, 1983 in curatorial file]; sold by Durand-Ruel [stock no. 9336] to Dr. Werner Weisbach (died 1953), Berlin and Basel, October 3, 1910 [Durand-Ruel letter mentioned above]; estate of Weisbach; sold to Eberhard Kornfeld, Bern (through Silvio Barandun) [letter from Eberhard Kornfeld dated June 26, 2003 in curatorial file]; sold to Richard Zinser, New York, c. 1954 [Kornfeld correspondence]. Bequeathed by Mrs. Sterling Morton, Chicago, to the Art Institute, 1969.