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 Choristes
Appreciation for the work, as part of those Degas showed in 1877, did not diminish with the passage of time. In 1897, when the work was put on exhibit at the Musée du Luxembourg, Léonce Bénédite called "Les Choristes" part of a group of "acute, ironic and cruel observations ... the work of a firm, sure hand [and] just, sensible eye." He called them "little masterpieces" that a public not generally aware of Degas's genius had done well to acquire.