Inscribed and signed in graphite at lower edge, "Arabesque"; "artist's proof"; "Paul Cadmus".
Artist's proof. Edition of 75 (1947); second edition of 35 (1979)
This etching of dancers was created after a diminutive painting of the same name in the collection of the Evansville Museum of Art and Science, Evansville, Indiana. It was not unusual for Cadmus to create prints after his own paintings. A preparatory study for the painting resides in the Morgan collection; see 2000.49. Lincoln Kirstein, co-founder of New York City Ballet and a Cadmus expert, writes that Cadmus, who regularly observed classes at the School of American Ballet, "recognized the tradition of academic ballet as akin to his own preoccupation with traditional mastery of the human body."