Little Dancer Aged Fourteen: The True Story Behind Degas's Masterpiece

by Camille Laurens, Willard Wood (Translator)

This absorbing, heartfelt work uncovers the story of the real dancer behind Degas's now-iconic sculpture, and the struggles of late nineteenth-century Parisian life.

She is famous throughout the world, but how many know her name? You can admire her figure in Washington, Paris, London, New York, Dresden, or Copenhagen, but where is her grave? We know only her age, fourteen, and the work that she did--because it was already grueling work, at an age when children today are sent to school. In the 1880s, she danced as a "little rat" at the Paris Opera, and what is often a dream for young girls now wasn't a dream for her. She was fired after several years of intense labor; the director had had enough of her repeated absences. She had been working another job, even two, because the few pennies the Opera paid weren't enough to keep her and her family fed. She was a model, posing for painters or sculptors--among them Edgar Degas.

Drawing on a wealth of historical material as well as her own love of ballet and personal experiences of loss, Camille Laurens presents a compelling, compassionate portrait of Marie van Goethem and the world she inhabited that shows the importance of those who have traditionally been overlooked in the study of art.

Genres: Nonfiction, Art, History, Biography, France, Art History, Roman

176 pages, Hardcover

First published August 30, 2017

About the author

Camille Laurens sur les hommes qu'elle décrit dans son livre..


Elle ne va pas à leur rencontre, du moins pas comme on pourrait croire. Elle ne fond pas sur eux pour les capter, les saisir, leur parler. Elle les regarde. Elle se replit de leur iamge comme un lac du reflet d'un ciel. Elle les maintient d'abord dans cette distance qui permet de les réfléchir. Les hommes restent donc là longtemps, en face d'elle. Elle les regarde, elle les observe, elle les contemple. Elle les voit toujours comme ces voyageurs assis vis-à-vis d'elle dans les trains maintenant rares où cette disposition existe encore : non pas à côté d'elle, dans le même sens, mais en face, de l'autre côté de la tablette où gît le livre qu'elle écrit. Ils se tiennent là. C'est le sexe opposé.

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was on an eighth grade school trip to the Chicago Art museum when I fell in love with the paintings of Degas. His painitings of ballerinas fascinated me, at that time I thought the life of a ballerina was one of elegance and grace. Of course, now I know it also includes a great deal of work and pain.

This is a slim book, and instead of focusing on his paintings, though of course that is mentioned on well, focuses on a sculpture he made of a young ballerina. Her features distorted to look almost humanoid, the public found her ugly, unacceptable. Degas never showed this sculpture again. He had turned to sculpture because his eyesight had begun to fail, but at that time those were never accepted as much as his paintings.

The book is part art history, part a history of the times, the young ballet girls called rats, from families who needed them to earn money at a young age. Degas himself and how his art was accepted and what as.

"Edward Degas captured an unfiltered reality and provoked disquieting sensations. He questioned society. In this sense, he was much more a realist than Impressionist. His contemporaries, in fact, reproached him for pushing his realism to extremes.It was a well and good to hear down "the partition dividing the atelier from ordinary life" but he went to far in applying "the major rule of naturalism," which was to exaggerate physical and moral ugliness."

The girl in the sculpture was named Marie, she was one of the young ballet rats. It was a hard life, little money, little food. Not much is known about her but what is known is shared. An understanding of her comes from the realities of the time, how those working poor and women in general were viewed. Such luminaries as Zola, Matisse an others also have bits here and there. An interesting book for those who enjoy a slice of art history, but don't expect this book to just be about the life of young Marie.

[Julia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honestly, I could sum up all of the actual historical information about Marie Van Goethem presented in this book in one paragraph.

I can't decide whether reading this felt like reading a class-assigned essay that had an excessively large word count (so the student just prattled on and on without reason) or like reading something written by someone in love with the sound of their own words.

In my opinion, the author comes off as many things: obsessed, imaginative, narcissistic, condescending. The first half of the book, we have minimal historical information, spread across nearly a hundred pages by sheer verbosity, repetitiveness, and invention. What links the few bare facts about Marie Van Goethem's life and her time with Degas is an abundance of quotes from other sources and the author's personal fantasies of their lives. While I understand that without any personal conjecture by the author into the feelings of these historical figures this would be more of a textbook, her fantasizing in the first 2/3rds of the book is unruly. She states her assumptions and biases like facts, pitying and sympathizing, rather than as theories. In part 3, she admits to her overactive imagination and blames it on her strong empathy for Marie (really she should say the "imagined character of Marie" because she doesn't know her, can't ever know her, and is completely and fanatically taken with her own idea of her).

The author spends many paragraphs sympathizing over Marie's poverty. While she does describe the historical conditions of Marie's life inside and outside of the ballet well, the same statements are repeated ad nauseam throughout the text. She alternates between reflecting Degas' personality and his personal flaws as described by accounts of his contemporaries and attempting to paint him more sympathetically. "Did they laugh together?" she asks.

She spends an obscene amount of time dissecting all possible meanings of the sculpture, its position, it's materials, its relation to viewers of the past and viewers today, and its impact (or non-impact) on Marie's life. It reminded me of a pompous person at the local modern art museum who is pretending to know, rather than knowing, the meaning of a work of art. That's not to say the work has no meaning or that the meaning shouldn't be discussed, but half of her theorizing was in the form of rhetorical questions, had no support, and/or drifted away from the subject entirely.

Maybe it's not even the dissection of meaning that bothered me so much as the tone. Her voice is that of an obsessive fan. I'm sure you have to be devoted to a subject to research it and write a book. Especially if that subject has such a dearth of information, and despite that fact, you continue to insist on publication. At times it's almost creepy to read her writing because of how obsessive she sounds. As though she wishes she could go back in time, meet Marie, become her best friend and spend the rest of her life staring at her.

Even worse than the obsessive tone was section 3, which isn't really about Marie, the statue, or Degas at all. It's about the author's personal journey to bring this book to life. About how she, unlike all the others who had written about Marie, could not give up in search of the truth. She just had to know what happened to Marie after she was fired from the opera. All the other academics, authors, and art historians were content to forget about her after her time with Degas, but not this author! No, she was the noble one who would bring justice to Marie's memory. #eyeroll. This is the narcissistic tone I mentioned above.

I mean, come on. I didn't buy this book to hear about the author's personal struggles and what she overcame to write this book. I bought it to read about the girl behind the statue. Her vain and extended explanations on her research process, the ups-and-downs, etc. are of no interest to me.

Yes, it's cool to know how she verified Marie's birth date, but then she drifts from Marie to the handwritten records, and how the writing changes with time, and I wonder if my great-grandmother could have met Marie, and now let's talk about how my great-grandmother was the first Parisian in her family who moved there because she became pregnant before marriage and then gave birth to my grandmother whose father is *gasp!* unknown and possibly a criminal!

I'm not joking. That was a real, multi-page digression that was completely unnecessary and only served to increase page count and stroke the author's ego.

As I began this review, so I will finish it. I do not recommend this book. The complete biographical information of Marie Van Goethem contained within the book can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_v...

You can also find the majority of information regarding the statues historical context and reception on the internet.

And lastly, the author repeatedly states that the statue stands in fourth position. That is blatantly incorrect. You could say it's similar to fourth position, but it is NOT fourth position. It is a pose of rest, not a ballet pose. No ballet teacher in our time or Marie's would have considered her stance an acceptable fourth position.

[Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars for this book. If you are interested in a lengthy description of the body of work by Degas and don’t mind some personal musings by the author then this is the book for you, filled with descriptions of some of Degas body of work and some of degas contemporaries opinions of the artist, but if you are interested in getting to know more about the story of the “little dancer” which this book said that’s what it would be about then you are for a sad surprise, basically the whole information about the “little dancer” in this book is her name, and a brief mention of someone who could be her fleeing with her family in a train ...that’s it, the author cannot even ascertain when or where the “little dancer” died. There is a lot of historical and cultural background that gives a more nuanced reality towards the sculpture and that is why I’m giving it 3.5 stars.

[Kristi Hovington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ufff. What an interesting, yet infuriating book.

After reading this book, I do not think I can gaze at a Degas, Renoir, or Delacroix without thinking of their misogyny (and antisemitism, and, and, and…, I’m sure.) I stopped counting at seven “WTAF’s” I scribbled in the margins of my book, including these nuggets:

"Degas said he wanted to 'give an idea of the boredom, despondency...and total absence of sensation that women experience in front of paintings.'"

or this:
"Renoir did not approve of educating the weaker sex, for instance, believing its effects might be terrible, namely 'that future generations would make love very poorly.'"

and there's this, also by Renoir:
"Women's hands are lovely to paint, as long as they are hands that perform the housework!"

I'm leaving out the more explicit sexual references these men made about girls around the same age as my daughter's age of 12 because it it is repulsive to consider it any further than I had to in reading this book.

I thought a lot about the brilliant film "Tár" when I read this, particularly the questions it, and this book, raise about separating the art from the artist, if it is advisable, if it is worthwhile. The book "Vladimir" also adroitly questions this. I know for me, while I may agree that the art itself is noteworthy, or brilliant, even, I cannot divorce it from what I know of the artist, rightly or wrongly. Both exist; both are important. Renoir can be both a great painter (I suppose, I've never been a big fan) and a fatuous, loathsome oaf.

The author has long been drawn to Marie, the model of Degas’s sculpture “little dancer aged 14,” and attempts to draw a life for her from scant historical records. That accounts for about a third of the book, and she richly portrays the world that Marie lived in. What I learned: the model for this famous sculpture was a very young dancer who got barely made any money, was forced into prostitution by her mother as a pre-teen, and briefly posed for Degas at age 14. It is so depressing - and infuriating - imagining not only Marie’s life, but the lives of all girls born to poverty during that time. These girl’s lives are so bleak, and contrasted with the dunderheaded, sexist, celebrated male artists portrayed here who see them as brainless half-wits reduced to their value as housekeepers and handmaidens…well, I was horrified and disgusted by it all.

That said, it is a well written book illuminating the lives of women and I’m glad I read it.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little Dancer Aged Fourteen is the translation by Willard Wood of Camille Laurens’ 2017 novel La petite danseuse de quatorze ans, and the 12th book my one of my favourite publishers, Les Fugitives.

It is based around Degas’s sculpture of the name (and the casts taken from it) and, in particular, the model for the artwork:

She is famous the world over, but how many know her name? You can admire her figure in Washington, Paris, London, New York, Dresden, or Copenhagen, but where is her grave? We know only her age, fourteen, and the work that she did, because it truly was work, at an age when our own children are attending school. In the 1880s, she danced as a petit rat (as girls in training for the corps de ballet were known) at the Paris Opera, and what seems like a dream to many of our young girls today was not a dream to her, not the happy age of youth.

Originally published in the US 2018, this is a re-edited version of the translation, one important (and I think sensible) change being to preserve the French term ‘petit rat’ rather than translate is as ‘little rat’:

Editor’s note: Petit rat de l'Opera is a classic term in modern francophone culture. It refers to a young ballet dancer — a gifted child studying at the Paris Opera — and has cachet. In French, the "t" at the end of rat is silent. Because of the less nuanced associations of "little rat," we have kept this term in its original.

Marilyn Monroe and the Little Dancer:


Her name was Marie van Goethem, and Laurens tells us what little is known of her life – a reasonable amount up to and around the time of the statue, but then she seems to disappear, not just from Degas’ life but also the historical record a few years later, when she is dismissed from the Opera, in part due to absenteeism while posing for Degas.

She also investigates the life of a petit rat, rather less glamorous that one might think, closer to a form of child labour, with parents often procuring the children for wealthy sponsors, and a general dissolute air surrounding the ballet scene, with even the prima ballerinas regarded with fascination. lust but also suspicion (here she draws on the literature of the period):

Ballet dancers, as the dubious cynosure of this shady world, were synonymous with corruption and degeneracy, linked with prostitutes who might bring crashing down a venerable genealogical tree. The dancer's power was worrying: The corps de ballet is the great power," wrote Balzac.

Laurens account also discusses the history of the sculpture, including its scandalised reception, and what is known about the relationship between Degas and Marie: here she largely acquits him of any improper behaviour, although his attitude to women and the lower classes, while reflective of the milieu, leaves much to be desired.

Les Fugitives specialise in books that straddle the boundary of fiction, biography and non-fiction, a boundary that is typically more porous in French literature. Little Dancer Aged Fourteen is certainly not a fictionalised reimaging of Marie’s life, such as The Painted Girls or Marie, Dancing, both of which the author cites and admits to finding somewhat irritating for their inventions:

While I recognize that I too have more than once let my imagination take flight, at least I have tried not to stray too far from the direction of the truth, Particularly with respect to a work "forcibly residing in reality." I like to have, as Francois Truffaut said, "verification through life." On this point at least, it was clear to me from the beginning that my project would take the form of nonfiction, also that I planned not to separate the model from the artist, that I would capture if possible some element of their relationship, out of which one of the great works of modern times arose.

Indeed, for this project, Laurens cites Annie Ernaux’s insistence to her in an interview on the ”need to be engaged through and through with truth-finding, even to the point of obsession – going back to original sites, inventing no detail”, Laurens admitting that this is not my natural mode. I am not normally fixated on accuracy, I let my memory use its own imagination. But in this case it wasn’t about my own memories. I wanted to be honest in my dealing with this tiny life.

However, that does mean that the novel is perhaps strongest when there are facts to support the story, such as when it tells of Degas's life and the history of the work, “reaching the level of art criticism” and telling of Degas (as per this review: https://theartsdesk.com/books/camille...

Although Degas did not make his sculpture life-sized, he could have done so, as Marie was less than five feet tall, but a recent scandal had rocked the art world. In 1877, Rodin was criticized for using molds taken directly from his models to make The Age of Bronze and other statues. Mold making was widely used in the nineteenth century by various scientific disciplines to preserve an object’s impression, but it was felt to detract from the artistic value of sculpture. The artist was meant to “represent” reality, not replicate it or trace it directly from nature. As Renoir put it crudely, a work shouldn’t “stink of the model.” That’s what made the difference between art and mere skill or technical expertise. Taking a direct mold from nature should be kept for anatomical models, which the sculptor might use for inspiration but nothing more. To ward off this line of criticism and avoid polemics, Degas altered the scale of his works. All his sculptures are less than life-sized.

Yet sculpture would seem to be an art that is inseparable from technique. In practice, after drawing a great number of preparatory sketches, what did Degas do in the midst of his studio while Marie struggled to maintain her pose? He sat on a kind of saddle, from which he often arose to approach his model. He touched her, traced the lines of her body, probed its density, poked at her joints, studied the insertion of the muscles. If we are to believe Gauguin, who visited Degas at work, the sculptor looked for the true in “the human carcass, the skeletal frame, its articulated movement.”

From this coming and going, a wire skeleton would gradually take shape, roughly corresponding to the intended figure. Its different parts—the torso, legs, etc.—would be attached with cable or string to metal plaques. In a moving letter to Henri Rouart, Degas wrote: “Do you remember one day, you were saying about someone that he no longer assembled, a term used in medicine for defective minds. I’ve always remembered it. My eyesight no longer assembles, or does so with such difficulty that I’m often tempted to give up and sleep, never to wake.” Perhaps this composite mannequin allowed the artist to avert his anguish.

It is also strong at the novel’s end when Laurens own personal interest in the story becomes clearer.

But the reality of Marie’s own life proves elusive; although Laurens digs into the archives, this isn’t a book with an ‘aha revelation from her research, and her admirable refusal to invent what is not known left me (as someone more interested in the human story than the work of art) a little frustrated:

Degas's masterpiece, in its modernity, may mark a break with the esthetic past, but the "collapse of something" also corresponds to someone's lived reality: Marie was there, she is in the work. That's why the story of the Little Dancer Aged Fourteen can't end here. What is still missing, what I have not found — I who seek to know everything about her is something that is neither moral, nor philosophic, nor religious, or rather something that is all those things together. Beyond the physical, and beyond the critical reviews, what is missing is her soul. Degas's ghost instantly takes issue, the painter having always objected strenuously to talk of the soul and "the influence of the soul." "We speak a less pretentious language," he said, claiming to be subject only to "the influence of the eyes."

Overall, a book that perhaps for me required a little more interest in the artwork itself than I personally have. 4 stars for quality, but 3 for my personal taste.

Interview with the author:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unawg...

Reading by the author:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9cKv...

Extract:
https://www.culturetheque-blog.com/po...

(from https://www.institut-francais.org.uk/...)

[Teenie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give this a 2.5 stars but I rounded up to 3.

I was very interested in learning more about the little dancer. I always found this statue to be inspiring and special. I look at this statue differently now after reading this book. This story didn’t offer much information about the little dancer, but what we know of her is a sad and unfortunate. I felt like there was a lot a rambling of words in this book. We hardly learn anything about the little dancer, which I found disappointing. The author assumes and jumps to conclusions when it comes to Degas and the little dancer. I finished this book feeling unsatisfied and wishing I learned more about this little girl.

[Caleb Hoyer · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is some interesting information about Marie van Goethem and the famous sculpture that Degas modeled after her in this book. Unfortunately, there’s only about 4 paragraph’s worth of it, and the book, though short, is over 140 pages. Aside from the few nuggets of actual information, the book is padded with the author’s musings, assumptions, and analysis, which were well-written and may be interesting to some, but were simply not what I was looking for in the book. So much of it felt so speculative that I often wondered why I was even reading it.

[Trish · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was torture to read. It was 120 pages that could have been condensed into about 20. An art history senior thesis would probably do this topic more factual and concise justice without romanticizing poverty and prattling on about the facial features of criminals.

The author rambles and meanders along with a few facts and interesting bits interspersed throughout her drivel about personal life and tangents.

[Summer Brennan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a gorgeous book. I can't recommend it enough.

[Seda Dincer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Üç bölümden oluşan kitapta ilk bölüm, Paris Opera'sında, yoksul kesimden gelen, küçük yaşlarda, zorlu koşullarda ve düşük ücretlerle çalıştırılan çocukların dramı anlatılırken, ikinci bölümde Edgar Degas'ın yaratım süreci ve üçüncü bölümde ise yazarın kendi samimi düşünceleri konu ediliyor. Bittiğinde ise sizi sorularla başbaşa bırakıyor.

[Ambrose Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite sculpture, first encountered at the St. Louis Museum of Art and then again at The Clark Museum of Art in Williamstown, MA., where I visit her at least four times a year. The book was okey dokey and I got a lot out of it, but I think the five stars mostly reflect the work itself.

[Abbie | ab_reads]

(#gifted @les.fugitives.press) Little Dancer Aged Fourteen is an interesting deep-dive into the seedy side of ballet, opera and art at the end of the 19th century. The focus of Camille Laurens book is Marie van Goethem, a dancer and artist's model who posed for Edgar Degas's sculpture Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. The statue is famous, although initially received harsh criticism, but how many people are aware of Marie's history?
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The life of a young girl, living in poverty and forced to sell their bodies in various ways by desperate mothers, is not of much worth to historians. The allure of the opera was real, but the behind the glittering facade was a grim underbelly: terrible wages, brutal hours, male 'protectors' who could vouch for precarious jobs at the theatre on behalf of their favourites in exchange for certain favours. The law was not on their side, as primary education was not yet compulsory for girls in the opera, and 13 was the age of so-called sexual maturity. 1880's Paris was not a good time to be a young girl and poor.
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Marie, not particularly passionate about ballet, moved onto modelling for artists instead, as it was better pay and not as exhausting. She found herself in the studio of Edgar Degas, as the painter turned to sculpture when his eyes began to fail. I'm not particularly interested in Degas, it was Marie and the micro-history of one regular person that fascinated me.
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I also appreciated being made to consider things I don't usually consider. For example, Degas used wax for his statue, believed part of beauty resided in its ephemerality, and did not want to upgrade his wax sculpture to a more durable material. But after his death, his descendants had 22 bronze casts made and sold them all over the world. Did they have the right to go against the artist's wishes like that?
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I thought the ending got off track, with Laurens moving more into memoir territory, but overall it was an interesting glimpse into French society at the time, and the life of one young girl whose likeness became world famous.

[Ruth Jenkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short and nicely crafted book about the ballet dancer who posed for Degas' sculpture Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. There's a fair amount of assumption and extrapolation, from Degas' notes and what's known of the lives of girls similar to Marie van Goethem, so history purists might be less impressed, but I see this book in a similar vein to The Five, which redresses the narrative of Jack the Ripper to focus on the women. In the same way, Laurens paints a picture of the life Marie very well could have lived, in real life not simply as a wax statue. My favourite part was the final chapter which explains Laurens' research processes and reflects on her personal connection to Marie and to Little Dancer Aged Fourteen.

[Alysson Oliveira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Em Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, a escritora francesa Camille Laurens se propõe a investigar a vida de Marie Geneviève van Goethem, a garota que posou para Degas servindo de modelo para uma de suas esculturas mais famosas, A pequena bailarina de 14 anos. A ideia nunca foi fazer uma biografia profunda, detalhada e definitiva. Laurens aqui combina ensaio, com divagações sobre história, arte e feminismo, além de relatos pessoais.

Na primeira parte, Laurens começa situando historicamente o leitor sobre o que era ser artista, na Paris do final do século XIX, mas mais do que isso, o interesse dela é sobre o que era ser mulher e pobre naquele momento. As pequenas dançarinas da Opera eram chamadas de “petit rat”, e eram exploradas físicas e emocionalmente. A autora reconstitui a relação da pequena Marie Geneviève com Degas a partir de alguns escritos e de sua imaginação.

É um projeto altamente pessoal da autora, que, em alguns momentos, se coloca em primeira pessoa. Ela mesma confessa que se apegou demais a Marie Geneviève e sua história tão repleta de lacunas – muito pouco se sabe: era a filha do meio de um alfaiate e uma lavadeira (que a certa altura prostituiu a filha mais velha), sua irmã caçula seguiu carreira na Opera de Paris, como bailarina, e alguns outros episódios. Mas ela se casou? Teve filhos? Quando morreu? Isso tudo é uma incógnita que permite a Laurens divagar sobre a vida da garota. Como dito, não é uma biografia, não é um trabalho eminentemente investigativo, e aí está sua sedução. É um relato muito bem escrito de uma mulher do presente indagando sobre a posição da mulher do passado, e, ao resgatar a trajetória da pequena modelo comentar sobre as conquistas e derrotas da mulher nesse último século.

[Valérie Rioux · Rating 3 out of 5]

Se lit bien pour quiconque s'intéresse à l'art, à la scène artistique parisienne de la deuxième moitié du 19e siècle et sur les conditions de vie des femmes, des danseuses, des modèles. Drôle de projet littéraire, pas entièrement de "non-fiction", mais aussi près de la réalité que possible. Très grand travail bibliographique.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very Moving

A poignant look at the dancer who posed for Degas’ statue. A 14 year old girl named Marie who looked 12. Her mother and 2 sisters all live in object poverty. Ballet used these girls in productions but paid them very little. When Marie was dismissed from the ballet, she disappeared as did her family.

[Madeline · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was great if you want 140 pages over which to think about the little dancer but you will not learn very much

[Joy Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let it be known, Little Dancer is one of my (many) Roman empires. This book was incredible, piecing together the various details that composed the life of the model and the well documented life of the artist in the context of impressionism and Parisian culture. The prose was fantastic - especially when considering it was translated from French. I did have to mark down my rating to 4/5⭐️ because the last quarter of the book was just the author going on about her obsession with little dancer and it just deviated from the other sections awkwardly…

[Susanna Chin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was nothing more than an obsessive rambling of a woman who loved the sculpture. The amount of new facts revealed about this art work and its model could be condensed into one short paragraph, yet this writer wrote a whole book on it jammed with irrelevancies. A very tedious read. I almost didn’t finish but tortured myself and struggled through just in case it became more interesting.

[Shawn Callon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a moving story of a short-lived relationship between a famous Impressionist painter who had little love for his fellow human beings and a fourteen year old Parisian child born into poverty. Many of these girls were enrolled by their mothers into the Paris Opera as a possible way to exit their poverty-stricken lives; they had small walk-on parts and would scurry around backstage. They were called 'rats'. There were badly treated and were expected to work long hours holding ballet poses; they had to endure severe physical punishments from the ballet master for non-compliance. Eventually many of the rats who were not talented enough to become ballerinas turned to prostitution serving the demands of the wealthy male theatergoers of the time.
The enthusiastic author estimates that Marie and Degas worked off and on for four to five years; unfortunately she missed so many sessions at the Opera that she was dismissed. Here's the big question that the author raises - why would such a conservative artist produce a wax sculpture of an opera rat in a pose of indifferent detachment, knowing that it would incur the disapproval and hostility of the viewing public. Was he attacking society's morals, why did he emphasize Marie's haughty appearance, why didn't he just paint her? Camille addresses these and other interesting questions in her novel.

[Josefa De la Barra · Rating 4 out of 5]

si eres alguien que ama el arte y la historia (historia del arte, duh) entonces este libro te encantará, y yo como amante de ambas cosas, lo disfruté un montón. el nivel de misterio que corre por las páginas de este libro engancha a cualquiera, pero la pena y rabia que causa el leer la realidad de las mujeres e infantes en el siglo xix es imposible de ignorar. si bien no me gustó tanto que la autora le diese TANTO enfoque a Degas (tomando en cuenta que el libro por su título toma de protagonista a una chica bailarina de ballet de catorce años), sí valoro lo muchísimo que aprendí del mundo del arte de los 1800s y la vida europea/parisina de la misma época. recalcar que este libro pegó más fuerte de lo que creo que debería haberme pegado por el sencillo hecho de que yo también fui bailarina de ballet, y compartir este gran detalle con la protagonista, que nos hace tan similares pero tan diferentes al mismo tiempo, realmente me dejó con el corazón muy blando y con una leve obsesión por la pequeña de catorce años, porque realmente dan ganas de saber más y más de ella.

este libro tocó mi pasión por la historia, el arte y el ballet de una forma bellísima, y le agarré gran aprecio por haber llegado de forma tan abrupta y violenta a esos rincones en mi.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is rather oriented towards the writer's empathy towards the model rather than the sculpture itself. It is endearing to attest how warming a masterpiece can still be, but don't be mislead into thinking the complete mystery surrounding the model will be unveiled either, although it does bring some light about topics such as the exact birthdate. All in all, a good read for anyone who has enjoyed contemplating Degas' works.

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Biography of Marie van Goethem, a model of Edgar Degas. Translated from the French.
Marie is the fourteen year old girl who was also a dancer at the Paris Opera and did some modeling for Degas, particularly the "Little Dancer" sculpture that Degas is famous for, which today can be seen in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. You get a glimpse, but she had a hard scrabble life and not a lot is known about her. Late 1800's France.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars
Unexpectedly moving.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of my favs in childhood

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

wanted to read this after visiting this at the met. so interesting to read about the society at the time and the era in which the sculpture was received… especially because of how much it influences our culture now.

[Bre · Rating 4 out of 5]

A la fois académique et personnel. Je recommande fortement ce livre pour ceux/celles qui ont un intérêt dans l'art et la littérature, la danse classique, et la vie parisienne au 19ème siècle. Bien écrit, bien recherché, et pas trop long (160 pages).

[Ludamater · Rating 5 out of 5]

Odlična, toliko dobar prikaz društva vremena, stanja uma tadašnjeg doba.

[Paulette Illmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read the historical fiction The Painted Girls, when I saw Little Dancer Aged Fourteen on the shelf at my local library, I couldn't resist. So little is known of the girl who posed for the famous statue by Degas, the book is a mere 147 pages, most of it trying to piece together what is known of the young ballet dancers of the time with the reality of one. It's like a genealogy project that provides some answers, but leaves you with more questions.

[Elma · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a very long book for a very brief research-based biography. It took me more than a month to finish. Frankly, I did not enjoy although I am an art history fan. Sorry…