Petit Cabinet de Toilette

Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas printed this drypoint in six states, reusing a copper plate from “On Stage II” which had only been printed in a single impression. According to Reed and Shapiro at the time of their raisonné of 1984, the first state only had 2 known impressions; the second state also had 2 impressions; the third state has 2 impressions; the fourth state has a single impression and the fifth state had at least 11 impressions. The plate was canceled and printed in the sixth state in a few campaigns.

Barbara Shapiro, in her essay regarding Degas’s copper plates makes the following observations: Delteil refers to Degas’s canceled plates being printed in an edition of 150 for publisher Ambrose Vollard, who had acquired the plates around 1910 to print for use in a biography of Degas. She speculates that Degas would have canceled them himself before turning them over to Vollard. Around 21 of the plates were printed between 1919 and 1920, 15 on Japon paper and 7 on cream wove, all papers measuring around 12-3/4 x 9-7/8 inches, indicating they were to be used in a book or portfolio.

After Vollard’s death in 1939 the plates were acquired by the Parisian print dealer Henri Petiet, who may have pulled some impressions. In 1955 twenty five canceled plates were acquired by dealer Frank Perls, who had moved from Europe to Los Angeles. Perls had the Parisian Master Printer Lacourière print many of the group (with 3 added plates) in small and inconsistent editions between one and seventeen. He added a red stamp or a blindstamp in the margin to indicate the printing campaign. Perls sold most of the plates to dealer Heinz Berggruen.

Sixteen of the plates were purchased by collector Sam Josefowitz and his collection of impressions were sold as a collection of “French Impressions Twenty-Two Prints from Ambrose Vollard and Henri M. Petiet” by Christies in New York in November of 2022.