Five Dancing Women By Edgar Degas Analysis

Five Dancing Women is a 19th century painting, stolen by the Nazis in World War 2. It portrays five dancers, or ballerinas. Edgar Degas was born in Paris, France, to Celestine and Augustin De Gas. Preferring a not so elegant title, the young artist shortened his last name to Degas. His father was a banker, so the family of five children was fairly wealthy. At age eleven, Degas began school and graduated in 1853 with a bachelor’s degree in literature. Upon turning eighteen he had a room dedicated to art in his home. His father wanted him to go to law school, so the painter went to the Faculty of Law of the University of Paris but his effort was lacking, because he did not aspire to be a lawyer. Two years later he attended the Ecoledes Beaux-Arts and studied drawing. In 1856 he travelled to Italy and studied there for three years by copying Renaissance art. His artistic skills began to flourish. He continued to copy other artist’s work well into his later years. In 1870, Degas enlisted in the National Guard during the Franco-Prussian war. During training, his eyesight was found to be faulty, which was a constant worry due to his art career. Two years later, when the war ended, he moved to New …show more content…
It was the 9th out of the 10 best known Nazi stolen art pieces before World War I. The Nazis stole it from Baron Mor Lipot Herzog’s Collection. This was a collection that contained only Jewish artwork and was run by the Baron family and their descendants to follow. This is where the painting was maintained until its confiscation. Although it wasn’t one of the most well known paintings Degas has done, the family still wanted was the artwork back, so they filed a lawsuit against the Nazi Party to retrieve it. They did not win the case and now it is lost among the many missing paintings from Nazi Germany. To this day Five Dancing Women, along with other stolen art, is still being searched for to be put into