Degas Ballerina Bronze Sold for $19.2 Million

All so-called sculptures in bronze, attributed to Edgar Degas, are posthumous -counterfeits-.

That would also make Sir John Madejski's "Little Dancer" -counterfeit-.

You see, Edgar Degas was some three or more years dead (d. 1917) when those 2nd to 3rd-generation-removed counterfeits were posthumously reproduced in bronze with counterfeit -Degas- signatures applied between 1920 to 1936 or later.

The dead don't sculpt, much less sign anything.

This factual perspective is confirmed in the National Gallery of Art’s published 1998 Degas at the Races catalogue. On page 180 in Daphne S. Barbour’s and Shelly G. Strum’s “The Horse in Wax and Bronze” essay, these authors write: “Degas never cast his sculpture in bronze, claiming that it was a “tremendous responsibility to leave anything behind in bronze -- the medium is for eternity.”

Additionally, on the National Gallery of Art’s www.nga.gov/education/degas-11.htm website, it states: “By comparing the sculpture to stylistic changes in Degas' paintings and pastels, we are developing a chronology for the sculpture, which Degas did not date or sign.”

In the United States the Association of Art Museum Directors endorses the College Art Association's ethical guidelines on sculptural reproductions. In part, those ethical guidelines state: "any transfer into new material unless condone by the artist, is to be considered inauthentic or counterfeit and should not be acquired or exhibited as works of art."

Sothebys senior vice president John Tancock was one of the original signees for these 1974 ethical guidelines.

Gary Arseneau

Artist & Scholar

Fernandina Beach, Florida

Gary Arseneau of FL 5:50PM February 04, 2009