What was the name of the model for Degas' 'Little Dancer of Fourteen Years'?

Marie van Goethem was the model for Degas’s Little Dancer of Fourteen Years.

Van Goethem was a Belgian-born student and dancer associated with the Paris Opera Ballet’s dance school. Edgar Degas began working on the sculpture around 1880, when she was about fourteen, and presented the wax original at the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition in Paris in 1881.

The sculpture was startling for its time because Degas combined a realistic young dancer with unconventional materials: wax, a real fabric tutu, a satin ribbon, and human hair. Instead of presenting an idealized classical figure, he emphasized the dancer’s working identity and physical posture.

The exhibition response was sharply divided. Some critics admired the sculpture’s modernity, while others found its face and naturalistic treatment disturbing. Van Goethem’s later life is poorly documented, and her name appears in historical records with variant spellings. She is often confused with other famous models or dancers, but Degas’s Little Dancer is identified with Marie van Goethem.