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."
Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic
During the next few years, he took up archaeology and between 1869–76 was a member of the "Société d’anthropologie de Paris". In 1872, he founded a museum at Aix-les-Bains and published a ground-breaking illustrated work on prehistoric tools, "Les armes et les outils préhistoriques reconstitués". His experiments with etching during this time were equally innovative, and he developed the technique of ‘variable etching’ ("eau-forte mobile") where, by varying the ink on the plate, he was able to produce individual results at each printing. He was to teach this technique to his old friend Edgar Degas and the two co-operated on, and duly signed, Degas' large monotype "The ballet master" of 1874, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.