Study for "Dead Fox in the Forest"

In this delicate sheet from early in Degas’s career, the artist observes a dead fox’s limp body. Long and short directional strokes coalesce into a convincing representation of the coarse fur of the animal’s coat while a combination of looser marks with the white of the paper suggests the softer underbelly. The red stamp bearing Degas’s name at lower left was applied to this sheet — and to the many others that remained in the artist’s studio until his death — on the occasion of his estate sales of 1918 and 1919.