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Edgar Degas - Singer in Green 1884

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From Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City:
A sale catalogue of 1898 evocatively described the performer pictured in this pastel: "Skinny and with the graceful moves of a little monkey, she has just sung her ribald verses and, with a gesture that conceals an entreaty behind her smile, is inviting applause." With her small eyes, high cheeks, and low brow, the model recalls Marie von Goethem, the working-class girl who posed for Degas’s sculpture The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer. The singer’s dress, rendered in vivid yellow, turquoise, and orange, reflects the artist’s experimentation with saturated hues and color contrasts in the mid-1880s.
- See more at: http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/436159#sthash.asSkO1nZ.dpuf