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."
Les dragons de Villars
Les dragons de Villars is an opéra-comique in three acts by Aimé Maillart to a libretto by Lockroy and Eugène Cormon. The story of the opera was said to have been borrowed from "La Petite Fadette" by Georges Sand, updated by the librettists to the time of Louis XIV. It was premiered by the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris on 19 September 1856.