Le Foyer

Degas, Edgar (1834-1917)


Item type:
painting
Date of creation:
ca. 1870
Height:
19.7 cm  (7 3/4 in.)
Width:
27.0 cm  (10 5/8 in.)
Technique / Medium:
oil on wood

Additional titles

The dancing class

    Item location

  • Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
    [Museum inv. no.: 29.100.184]H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Description

Man holding violin with dancing/standing woman and approximately ten other female dancers. This is Degas's first depiction of a dance class. Because the artist did not yet have privileges to go backstage at the Paris Opéra, his subjects came to his studio to pose. These sessions yielded many large study drawings, which Degas subsequently adapted for other compositions. In the late 1870s, he explained, "I have painted so many of these dance examinations without having seen them that I am a little ashamed of it."

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

Violin [3573] (strings not visible)
Grand pianoforte [2284] (lateral view of front only)

RIdIM images


Image URLs

image link 1
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) image
image link 2
ARTstor image (requires subscription)

Bibliographic references

French Paintings: A catalogue of the collection... Vol.III, 19th-20th centuries (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1967) 69-71.

RIdIM record id

591