The rehearsal onstage

Degas, Edgar (1834-1917)


Item type:
drawing
Date of creation:
ca. 1874
Height:
53.3 cm  (21 in.)
Width:
72.4 cm  (28 1/2 in.)
Technique / Medium:
pastel over brush-and-ink drawing on thin cream-colored wove paper, laid down on bristol board and mounted on canvas
Place of creation:
Paris (France)
School:
Impressionism

Description

Nine young female ballet dancers are practicing onstage with a dancing master and observed by two sitting men. At the bottom of the image the scroll of a double bass extends into the drawing.

Iconclass

48C842
ballet group; dancers on the stage

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

Double bass [3111]

RIdIM images


Image URLs

image link 1

Bibliographic references

Stein, Susan Alyson. The private collection of Edgar Degas (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997) ISBN: 978-0300203615.

Keller, Horst. Edgar Degas (Munich: Bruckmann, 1988) ISBN: 978-3765421792.

Browse, Lillian. Degas dancers (New York: Studio Publications, 1949)

Lipton, Eunice. Looking into Degas
uneasy images of women and modern life (Berkeley, Los Angeles etc.: University of California Press, 1986) ISBN: 978-0520056046.

DeVonyar, Jill and Richard Kendall. Degas and the dance (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2002) ISBN: 978-1885444264.

KKendall, Richard and Jill DeVonyar. Degas and the ballet: picturing movement (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2011) ISBN: 978-1905711680.

Wick, Peter A. "Degas' violinist", Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts 57/310 (1959) 87-101.

Tenneriello, Susan. "Behind the scenes: Art work and the laboring body in the dance images of Degas", Dance Chronicle 38/1 (2015) 27-54.

Sparti, Barbara, Judy Van Zile, et al. Imaging dance: Visual representations of dancers and dancing (Hildesheim: Olms, 2011) ISBN: 978-3487145495.

Fischer, Miriam. Denken in Körpern: Grundlegung einer Philosophie des Tanzes (Freiburg i.Br: Verlag Karl Alber, 2010) ISBN: 978-3495484029.

Notes

The public image is part of the donation by the Performing Arts Index (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) to Association RIdIM.

There are three similar versions of this scene. The largest, painted in grisaille (Musée d’Orsay, Paris), appeared in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. The two others, tentatively dated the same year, are in the Metropolitan’s collection. The painting "The Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage" (inv.-no. 29.160.26) was most likely preceded by this pastel version, which is more freely handled.

RIdIM record id

4980