PROLOGUEthe original wax version. Structurally, the original 1881 sculpture bears
substantial similarities to the taxidermy mounts made around that
time. Inside the sculpture’s wax model is a metal armature to which bits
of wood, thread, rope, and other stuffing materials, including old paint-
brushes, were secured. Wax was regularly used in taxidermy mounts for
the modeling of fleshy animal parts that were not covered in fur. But in
artistic circles at the time, this material was more often used by artists to
produce maquettes rather than final works. And, rather importantly,
wax was used by artists who worked with animal subjects. In this sense, it
was a material predominantly associated with craft and genre scenes.^7 To
complicate matters further, wax was also associated with religious effi-
gies and anthropological displays in museums because it embodied a
translucent quality evoking the consistency of human skin. This mate-
rial choice infused Little Dancer with a vivid, illusive quality, one height-
ened by the implementation of a cotton and silk tutu, linen slippers, and
a fabric ribbon in her hair. This unorthodox assault to classical taste and
rules, one most likely inspired by African artifacts that the artist was
familiar with, caught audiences and critics by surprise. Jules Claretie
found the sculpture “strangely attractive, disturbing and [in possession
of ] unique Naturalism.”^8 McNeil Whistler was so shocked by the work
that he could apparently only utter short cries.^9 These surprising re-
sponses were triggered by Degas’s tampering with the balance between
realism and idealization typical of classical sculpture. Representation,
the essence of taste, and the epistemic modality through which classical
art had concealed the incongruities of everyday existence under a polished
veneer of decorum were destabilized at once. But the strongest material
challenge posed by Degas’s work rested on the head of the sculpture—a
wig of human hair.^10 This specific feature of Little Dancer is routinely un-
derscrutinized in art historical accounts, yet I argue that, much more than
the fabric tutu, this feature marks the most abrupt and radical departure
from the discourses of classical art ever performed in the nineteenth cen-
tury. This seemingly simple, yet utterly powerful gesture anticipated sur-
realist notions of the uncanny, the abject, and the object-assemblage by
more than forty years. The abrasive realness of materiality shattered the
screen of representational realism in order to reach further, to gesture to-
ward a new level of political realism in which the undeniable materiality of
“lived life” is no longer softened and edulcorated by ideological utopianism,