How Much Is The Star Worth?

The Star is a touchstone of Degas’s theater imagery: an on‑stage, full‑figure dancer in a dramatic bow, with the shadowed patron at the wing. Dancer subjects from the mid‑to‑late 1870s are central to Degas’s identity, and this composition is among the most reproduced and exhibited. It encapsulates Degas’s synthesis of modern life, artificial light, and movement at precisely the moment his pastel technique matured. Works that define an artist’s public image and scholarship command the strongest premiums, especially when they have served as canonical references in exhibitions and literature. That art historical centrality strongly supports a value at the very top of the artist’s market.

Pastel was Degas’s favored medium for the ballet, and large, saturated sheets mounted to canvas from the 1870s–80s are the apex of collector demand. The Star (1878) sits in this prime window and at an imposing size (c. 72 × 77.5 cm), enabling expansive color, dramatic lighting, and complex spatial staging. Collectors prize the technical bravura of layered pastel handling, which yields a painterly depth comparable to oil while remaining unmistakably Degas. The combination of prime date, substantial scale, and technically ambitious support elevates this work within the medium hierarchy, justifying a pricing tier materially above routine dancer pastels.

The work’s provenance—from a 19th‑century Paris sale, into the Camondo collection, and then by 1911 bequest to the French state—confers unimpeachable pedigree. Its long residence in a national museum underscores both rarity and cultural importance. Although French public collections are inalienable, which makes actual sale improbable, such institutional anchoring heightens the work’s symbolic capital and trophy appeal in any hypothetical offering. In the rare instances when museum‑level masterpieces surface, bidding competition tends to transcend ordinary comparables, with buyers paying for public recognition and curatorial validation as much as for object quality.

Degas’s top market results cluster around his ballet imagery. The artist’s overall auction record is $41.61 million for the Little Dancer bronze (2022), and prime dancer pastels have reached very high eight figures historically, establishing a robust ceiling for the category. Recent sales show continued liquidity for quality dancer pastels and stage‑view compositions, indicating durable, global demand. The Star surpasses typical offerings in fame, date, and scale, warranting an upward adjustment above both the bronze record and historical pastel peaks. Given current trophy‑chasing dynamics for iconic Impressionist masterpieces, competition would plausibly carry this work into the $80–120 million band.