Little Dancer of Fourteen Years
The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer (French: "La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans") is a sculpture begun c. 1880 by Edgar Degas of a young student of the Paris Opera Ballet dance school, a Belgian named Marie van Goethem.
Edgar Degas
After Degas's death, his heirs found in his studio 150 wax sculptures, many in disrepair. They consulted foundry owner Adrien Hébrard, who concluded that 74 of the waxes could be cast in bronze. It is assumed that, except for the "Little Dancer Aged Fourteen", all Degas bronzes worldwide are cast from "" (i.e., cast from bronze masters). A "surmoulage" bronze is a bit smaller, and shows less surface detail, than its original bronze mold. The Hébrard Foundry cast the bronzes from 1919 until 1936, and closed down in 1937, shortly before Hébrard's death.