Young Spartan Girls Challenging Boys

c. 1860

This picture takes its subject from the life of Lycurgus. The legendary ninth-century BCE Spartan lawgiver made many social reforms including physical training in which adolescent girls competed on an equal footing with boys, exercising nude in public. Degas would have worked up this monochromatic sketch with layers of color had he completed it, but he left it unfinished when he began a second version of the subject.

Public domain · CC0
Free to download and reuse. Image courtesy of Art Institute of Chicago.

Artist

Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917)

Date

c. 1860

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

97.4 × 140 cm (38 5/16 × 55 1/8 in.); Framed: 130.2 × 162.6 × 11.8 cm (51 1/4 × 64 × 4 5/8 in.)

Origin

France

Collection

Art Institute of Chicago

Credit

Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection