Edgar Degas, (1834-1917)

Chevaux dans la Prairie (Horses in the Meadow)

Chevaux dans la Prairie (Horses in the Meadow) (Delteil 66; R. and S. 56 III/III ), 1891-2
Soft ground etching, aquatint and drypoint on laid paper, an unrecorded working proof of the third state (there are two recorded proofs of the third state - one in the collection of The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and the other in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit) before the deluxe bound book edition of c. 50 entitled, L'Art Impressionniste, d'apres la collection privee de M. Durand-Ruel, edited by Georges Lecomte, with full margins.
image 4 1/8 x 5 1/8in (10.5 x 13cm); plate 5 1/8 x 5 7/8in (13 x 15cm;
sheet 8 3/4 x 12 1/4in (22.5 x 31.8cm)

Provenance
David David-Weil, Paris
Hôtel Drouot, Paris, "Vente D. David-Weil," May 25-26, 1971, lot 55
Paul Prouté, Paris
Private collection, Paris
Thence by descent to the present owner

This newly discovered impression is the only known working proof of Chevaux dans la prairie. It is richly inked, with atmospheric wiping, clearly more experimental in nature, with its uneven outlines and thick drypoint lines, particularly noticeable at the top of the hill in the trees. The bottom platemark is thick with ink, clearly not pulled as a final or bon-a-tirer proof.

Essay
In 1872, Degas painted Chevaux dans la Prairie (now in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) and sold it to his dealer Paul Durand-Ruel soon after painting it. In 1891, Galerie Durand-Ruel commissioned a deluxe bound volume of about fifty copies, of prints after paintings in M. Duran-Ruel's private collection entitled L'Art Impressionniste, d'apres la collection privee de M. Durand-Ruel, including Chevaux dans la prairie. A.M. Lauzet, a printer and copyist, was engaged to reproduce all the paintings. Degas was dissatisfied with Lauzat's rather anemic copy, so he created a more original version. In the original 1919 catalogue of Degas prints by Loys Delteil it was mistakenly called a "doubtful Degas" but later correctly identified as being by the hand of Degas by the art historian Marcel Guérin in his 1947 book, Additions et corrections au cat. Par L.D. (Loys Delteill) des gravures de Degas, also substantiated by Sue Welsh Reed and Barbara Shapiro in their 1984 catalogue Edgar Degas: The Painter As Printmaker.

The differences between the reproduction created by the copyist Lauzet, and the version by Degas are striking. The artist eliminated many of the short drypoint lines of the copyist, and substituted softground etching to create bold lines. He also flipped the image, so that the composition is now facing the other direction, rather than being a straightforward copy of the painting. For the third state, Degas added new elements, such as flecks of tone to the back of the legs of the white horse in the foreground, and horizontal lines in the horizon and the meadow.

It has not yet been determined where D. David-Weil might have acquired Chevaux dans la Prarie, but conjecture is that he probably purchased it from Galerie Durand-Ruel.