2g. "Etranges filles que ces pensionnaires. pictorial evidence to have survived, the tradition- i6 3 Jolies, laides, betes, spirituelles, toutes ont leur ally "intimate" form of sexual intercourse (part- Notes minute de folie et de desespoir; elles passent si- ners reclining face-to-face) is not included in the to Pages multanement du rire aux larmes, des menaces aux repertory of his prostitutes. There are also two leg- 43-49 caresses. Si on ecoute leurs confidences, elles im- ibly lesbian monotypes (Janis, nos. 117 [fig. 29] putent a la fatalite la cause de leur premier aban- and 118). don, et pour mieux exciter la pitie des clients, elle 33. Other monotypes in this format include renouvellent cette eternelle et vieille histoire de Janis, Degas Monotypes, checklist nos. 92, 95, 97, filles seduites. Aucune n'etait nee pour ce genre de and 104. vie et c'est par besoin qu'elles exercent ce repug- 34. Bernheimer, "Degas's Brothels," p. 165. nant travail. La corruption morale est rarement 35. Janis, Degas Monotypes, p. xx. complete, car dans leur chambre particuliere, 36. John Richardson, "The Catch in the Late nue, delabree, se trouvent des objets de piete, des Picasso," New York Review of Books, July 19, 1984, fleurs dessechees, souvenirs du pays, et des livres p. 26. honnetement ecrits. ... La plupart de ces filles 37. Lisa Tickner, The Spectacle of Women: Im- sont superstitieuses a 1'exces" (Mace, La Police, agery of the Suffrage Campaign, 1907—1914, Chi- PP-258-59)- cago, 1988, pp. 172, 173. 30. The other two monotypes on this subject are 38. Douglas Druick, "La Petite Danseuse et Janis, Degas Monotypes, checklist nos. 88 and 90. les criminels: Degas moraliste?" in Degas inedit, Fig. 22 is Janis no. 89. Actes du Colloque Degas, Paris: Musee d'Orsay 31. See my "Representations of Prostitution," (Apr. 18—21, 1988), pp. 224—50. A splendid over- PP- * 39-54- view of nineteenth-century physiognomic theory 32. Of an imagery of graphic heterosexual can be found in Neil McWilliam, "Making Faces," physical contact, few monotypes survive. The one Art History 7, no. i (Mar. 1984): 115—19. unequivocal and fully legible representation of 39. Linda Nochlin, "Degas on the Dreyfus Af- sexual activity survives only as a once-broken, fair: A Portrait of the Artist as an Anti-Semite," in now-mended zinc plate (Janis, Degas Monotypes, The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth, and Justice, Norman no. 108). In it two prostitutes attend to a corpu- L. Kleeblatt (ed.), Berkeley, 1988, pp. 103, 111. lent, mustachioed man; all three are naked. The 40. Anthea Calien, "The Flesh Made Word: prone woman appears to perform fellatio on him, Voyeurism and Sexual Guilt in Degas' Brothel while the other woman stands aside but touches Monotypes," paper presented at the annual meet- the leg of her colleague. In a similar but less leg- ing of the Association of Art Historians, London, ible image known as Sur le lit (once owned by Apr. 9, 1989. Nochlin ("Dreyfus Affair," p. 105) John Richardson, now in the Musee Picasso; ap- proposes that Degas's representation of his Jewish parently considered too daring to be shown along friend Ludovic Halevy in the artist's illustrations with Picasso's other Degas monotypes in Donation for Halevy's La Famille Cardinal came close to Picasso, Paris, 1978; Janis, Degas Monotypes, no. resembling "coarse Semitic-featured 'protectors' 109), a naked woman sits upright between the legs who appeared leering down the decolletages of of a supine naked man. His outstretched right leg ballet-girls in caricature of the time." Nochlin sur- rests on her splayed left thigh; his left leg folds be- mises that this resemblance may help to explain hind her buttocks. Because of the angle of their Halevy's rejection of Degas's illustrations. Insofar bodies, the genital areas are not visible, but her as the Famille Cardinal pictures were made ca. hands appear in position for a manipulation of his 1878 — at roughly the same time or slightly later genitals. She looks away from him, to her left. Her than the brothel monotypes — Nochlin's construal position does not seem to suggest the imminence serves to support C alien's discovery of negative of coitus, but rather her convenient access to ei- Semitic faces in the brothel monotypes. ther manual or oral manipulation of him. The im- 41. Alan Sekula, "The Body and the Archive," ages are not very clear, and we will never know October^ (Winter 1986): 3-64. what other monotypes were destroyed before the 42. T. E. Perkins quoted in Tickner, Spectacle studio sale in 1918. Anything we might say must of Women, p. 172. be provisional, but judging from the fragmentary 43. For example, Roy McMullen (Degas: His