Little dancer Degas sold for a record $ 60 million

The sculpture by renowned Impressionist Edgar Degas was sold at Christie’s auction in New York for $ 41.6 million ($ 60.6 million), a record for any work by the French artist.

The sculpture Petite danseuse de quatorze ans (Little Dancer at the age of fourteen) was in the collection of Anne X Bass, which went under the hammer during a series of art sales of 20-21 centuries auction house at Rockefeller Center in New York.

Bass, who died in 2020, was a leading philanthropist and philanthropist.

The collection consists of 12 works of art from the immaculately decorated Bass House in New York City.

Degas ’bronze sculpture was one of the most outstanding of a dozen collectors, valued at about $ 250 million.

The bronze figure with a brown patina with a muslin skirt and a satin ribbon for hair on a wooden base is the largest and most famous sculpture of Degas and the only one he exhibited during his lifetime.

The depiction of the young life-size ballet dancer by two-thirds caused a sensation when the wax version was first shown in 1881 at the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition in Paris.

Degas dressed the figure in real outfits: a dancer’s cotton bodice, linen ballet slippers, a tarlaton tutu and a wig made of real hair, pulled into a braid and tied with a silk ribbon.

The original version was cast in bronze only after the artist’s death, when 29 casts were made, most of which are in museums around the world.