Edgar Degas
Degas's only showing of sculpture during his life took place in 1881 when he exhibited "The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years". A nearly life-size wax figure with real hair and dressed in a cloth tutu, it provoked a strong reaction from critics, most of whom found its realism extraordinary but denounced the dancer as ugly. In a review, J.-K. Huysmans wrote: "The terrible reality of this statuette evidently produces uneasiness in the spectators; all their notions about sculpture, about those cold inanimate whitenesses ... are here overturned. The fact is that with his first attempt Monsieur Degas has revolutionized the traditions of sculpture as he has long since shaken the conventions of painting."
Prostitution in Impressionist painting
Degas's initial interest in prostitutes, in the years 1876-1890, started with his interest in Edmond de Goncourt's novel "La Fille Elisa" (1877). In 1876-1877, Degas filled a sketchbook with illustrations from de Goncourt's novel depicting scenes of a girl who becomes a prostitute with her soldier lover. Following soon after, Degas began illustrating the monotypes of brothel scenes, drawing the same physical type as the illustrations in his sketchbook. Although Degas drew individual prostitutes in a notebook, his actual monotypes were entire brothel scenes. 
Several scholars have tried to identify a literary source of Degas' fifty-some brothel monotypes, but none have found a direct connection. However, there have been parallels to Huysman's "Marthe, histoire d'une fille" (1876), and in Émile Zola's "Nana" (1880). Although the prostitution themes of the novels and of Degas' monotypes have similarities, there is a difference between the treatment of the subject; while Degas' prostitutes are "earthy, ugly creatures", the novelists tend to depict their prostitutes as more "heroic and noble".