Edgar Degas used everyday objects, such as wine bottle corks, as fillers in his wax sculptures, say scientists who used X-rays to unveil the secret behind the French artist's fragile creations.
Researchers at the Fitzwilliam Museum in the UK analysed three rare beeswax creations - depicting dancers - ahead of an exhibition marking the centenary year of the artist's death.
Degas "bulked out" a wire frame within each piece by adding lightweight domestic objects he had lying around his studio.
Wine bottle corks were used as fillers in the head, chest and abdomen cavity of the Dancer with a Tambourine, researchers said.
The unorthodox method was discovered when the fragile pieces were X-rayed.
The trio of dancer sculptures in the UK - Dancer Bowing, Dancer with a Tambourine and Arabesque over Right Leg, Left Arm in Front - are rarely put on public display because of their fragility. All are modelled in beeswax and are impressed with Degas's fingerprints.
"The use of ordinary shop-bought armatures, wine bottle cork and old floorboards, confirm Degas to have been a highly unorthodox sculptor who used unconventional working practices, in terms of materials and technique, which resulted in the frequent loss of his wax sculpture," a Fitzwilliam Museum spokesperson told the 'BBC News'.
Edgar Degas died on September 27 in 1917, at the age of 83. He was famous for his oils on canvas and prints and identified particularly with the subject of dance.
One of his most notable artworks is the bronze Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, which is held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the US.
Many of his scultptures were cast in bronze after his death but a number of original, experimental wax sculptures still exist.
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