Details

Object type

painting

Title

Woman Looking Through Field Glasses

Artist/Maker

Edgar Hilaire Germain Degas artist

Culture/School

French

Place Associated

France, Paris (place made)

Date

circa 1869

Materials

oil and pencil on paper laid down on canvas

Dimensions

framed: 548 mm x 413 mm x 59 mm; unframed: 320 mm x 185 mm

Description

This small work has an unsettling quality. As one writer has commented: ‘Isolated, standing by herself, the woman remains mysterious and not a little perverse as she reverses the common relationship between viewer and viewed.’ The young woman, from the evidence of her dress, her field-glasses and from other related works, is probably attending a race meeting.

The figure, however, can be read as a symbol of the act of looking. As an artist, Degas was acutely conscious of this act – a consciousness he was keen to communicate to us, the viewer. He reminds us of the need for our participation in the act of looking but also reminds us that what we are looking at is a work of art, something that has been deliberately and consciously created.

This is one of four finished drawings showing a young woman, seen directly from the front, looking through field-glasses. The other three are in the British Museum, in a Swiss private collection, and in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden. There are also a number of related pencil drawings.

Woman with Field Glasses is closely related to an oil of a race-course scene showing horses and jockeys, with a woman and man in the foreground. For some unknown reason Degas painted out the woman, leaving a summary painting of the man. The painting remained in Degas’s studio until his death. During cleaning at the National Gallery in London, in 1960, the figure of the man was revealed in more detail and the figure of the woman re-appeared.

Looking carefully at this work we can see that Degas first outlined the figure in pencil. He then worked his drawing up to a higher degree of finish by brushing it with essence and rubbing the paper with oil. It was probably Degas himself who then stuck the paper on to canvas.

The idea for this figure first appears in a quick note in pencil at the side of a drawing showing a top-hatted Manet at the races. This would suggest that Degas might have actually seen a woman staring at him through field-glasses and quickly recorded the pose. Later, he had a model pose for a series of drawings in which he explores the pose making subtle adjustments to the hands and arms and has the model wear different dresses and hats.

This was the first of twenty-two works by Degas that William Burrell acquired. Unfortunately we do not know exactly when Burrell bought it. From 1911 Burrell kept what are known as Purchase Books in which he carefully noted each of his acquisitions, detailing what he bought, from whom and how much he had paid.

We do know that this work was bought by Burrell around the turn of the century, from the Glasgow dealer Alexander Reid. It was one of many works by the artist that Reid handled in the 1890s. It seems that Burrell was not sure of his purchase because he included it in an auction sale of works from his collection held at Christie’s on June 14th 1902. Fortunately the small oil did not reach its reserve price and remained in the collection.

The back of the canvas bears Degas’s signature and a date ‘vers 1865’ – about 1865. The writing is Degas’s own and was no doubt added, later, from memory, but when? The art historian Ronald Pickvance has suggested, most plausibly, that both the signature and the rough date were added in 1880, just after the death of Degas’s friend, the writer and novelist Edmond Duranty.

Duranty had died relatively poor and his friends organised an auction sale to raise funds to help Duranty’s mistress. It is likely that Degas gave this small oil to the writer’s estate to be included in the sale, which was held on January 28-29th 1881. The sale catalogue survives. Lot 16, undoubtedly this work, is described as ‘Femme regardant avec une lorgnette, esquisse sur papier huile’.

Credit Line/Donor

Gifted by Sir William and Lady Burrell to the City of Glasgow, 1944

Collection

Burrell Collection: Pictures [Oils, Pastels and Watercolours]

ID Number

35.239

Location

In storage