Edgar Degas
Degas's work was controversial, but was generally admired for its draftsmanship. His "La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans", or "Little Dancer of Fourteen Years", which he displayed at the sixth Impressionist exhibition in 1881, was probably his most controversial piece; some critics decried what they thought its "appalling ugliness" while others saw in it a "blossoming". In part Degas' originality consisted in disregarding the smooth, full surfaces and contours of classical sculpture ... [and] in garnishing his little statue with real hair and clothing made to scale like the accoutrements for a doll. These relatively "real" additions heightened the illusion, but they also posed searching questions, such as what can be referred to as "real" when art is concerned. The suite of pastels depicting nudes that Degas exhibited in the eighth Impressionist Exhibition in 1886 produced "the most concentrated body of critical writing on the artist during his lifetime ... The overall reaction was positive and laudatory".
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.