Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando

Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando is a painting by French Impressionist artist Edgar Degas, now in the collection of the National Gallery in London. It shows Miss La La, a mixed-race acrobat, suspended from the rafters of the circus dome by a rope clenched between her teeth at the Cirque Fernando in Montmartre, Paris.[1][2] The work is Degas's only circus painting. Unlike his contemporaries like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Georges Seurat, the focus is not on the action within the ring or the crowd's reactions; the viewer sees the spectacle as the audience would have done, gazing up at the daring feat taking place above.[2] Degas may have also been seeking to emulate the expansive ceiling paintings by Italian artists such as Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, which he may have seen on his trips to Italy, in painting a highly foreshortened figure.[2][3]

Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando
ArtistEdgar Degas
Year1879
TypeOil painting
Dimensions117.2 cm × 77.5 cm (46.1 in × 30.5 in)
LocationNational Gallery, London

The painting was bought by the trustees of the Courtauld Fund in 1925. It was returned from the Tate Gallery to the National Gallery in 1950.

References
  1. Brown, Marilyn R. (December 2007). ""Miss La La's" Teeth: Reflections on Degas and "Race"". The Art Bulletin. 89 (4): 738–765. doi:10.1080/00043079.2007.10786372. JSTOR 25067359.
  2. "Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando". National Gallery. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
  3. Rosenberg, Karen (21 February 2013). "A Painterly Eye Capturing a High-Flying Muse". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 November 2019.

Further reading
  • Degas, Miss La La, and the Cirque Fernando. Exh. cat. ed. by Linda Wolk-Simon, with Nancy Ireson and Eveline Baseggio Omiccioli, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 2013.
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