Degas and the Old Testament

A study for La Fille de Jephté is an invitation to discover the painter’s work during his formative years, when he learned about academicism before breaking away from it and, above all, acquiring mastery of his line.

The signature “Degas” in the lower left-hand corner of this canvas is probably by another hand – as is often the case with studies, which are rarely signed. It is probably the last sketch painted by Edgar Degas before the completion of his work La Fille de Jephté, now in the Smith College Museum of Art (Northampton, Massachusetts). The authenticity of this canvas, painted around 1860, has been confirmed by Michel Schulman. It is reproduced in the supplement to his catalog raisonné. In the sale of the Degas studio following his death in 1917, several studies for Jephté were grouped together in a single lot. This subject takes us back to the artist’s youth, just before his changeover, to the period when he was looking not at everyday life, which would later fascinate him and make his reputation, but at history painting, drawing his subjects from Antiquity and the Bible, thus continuing his academic training. The theme of Jephthah’s Daughter has interested artists since the17th century – the drama of a father’s sacrifice of his only child was appropriate for the Baroque period. The Romantic 19thcentury took up the theme in its turn, both in painting and literature. In his collection Poèmes antiques et modernes, Alfred de Vigny paid tribute to the sacrificed young girl, concluding with these words : “She bowed her head and left. Her companions, as we mourn her, wept on the mountains. Then she came to offer herself to her father’s knife. – This is what the daughters of Israel sang.