a flower of precocious depravity

Marie van Goethem, Edgar Degas and “les petits rats”

Edgar Degas’s famous sculpture, “Little Dancer of Fourteen Years,” depicted a young ballet student (image via Wikimedia Commons)

Edgar Degas’s famous bronze sculpture Little Dancer of Fourteen Years depicts a girl standing in a classic ballet pose, with one foot extended and her hands clasped behind her back. Degas mixed hard and soft textures, decorating the sculpture with a real cloth tutu and a long satin hair ribbon tied in a drooping loop.

The sculpture has a peaceful look on her upturned face, appearing both at ease and supplicant, submitting her body to the dance at hand. But in reality, her graceful posture and girlish appearance belie a far darker, more grotesque reality.