The Dancing Class

Degas painted The Dancing Class around 1870, his first depiction of a ballet class. He was 36 years old and had not yet gained access to the backstage areas of the Paris Opera, so he brought dancers to his studio to pose. The painting is small, about 8 by 11 inches, painted on wood panel rather than canvas. The scene shows a rehearsal room with a ballet master seated at the left, beating time with a baton. A dancer in the center stands in a relaxed pose, one hand on her hip, the other adjusting her earring. Other dancers wait along the back wall, stretching and adjusting their costumes. The floor is wooden, painted in warm browns that reflect the light from a window at the left. A watering can sits in the foreground, used to dampen the floor so the dancers would not slip. The dancer at the center is Josephine Gaujelin, a professional dancer at the Opera whom Degas painted several times in the early 1870s. She stands with the casual boredom of someone waiting for instruction, not performing. This is the key to Degas's approach to ballet: he painted the waiting, the stretching, the boredom, not the performance. The ballet master is Jules Perrot, a famous dancer and choreographer of the Romantic era, who by 1870 was in his sixties and still teaching in Paris. Degas came to ballet subject through financial necessity as much as artistic interest. His family's banking business collapsed in the early 1870s, and he needed to sell paintings. Ballet was popular with collectors, and the Opera was a subject that no other serious painter was working with at the time. He painted ballet scenes for the next 40 years, producing over 1,500 works on the subject. Oil on wood, 19 by 27 centimeters. The small size and wood support suggest that Degas may have intended this as a study, but the finish is complete. The brushwork is loose and confident, with the figures built in quick strokes of ochre, pink, and black. The floor is the most carefully painted part of the composition, reflecting Degas's interest in the spatial geometry of the rehearsal room. The small horizontal format makes this print work well in a narrow wall space: above a doorway, between windows, or in a hallway. The warm browns and pinks suit rooms with wood floors and traditional furniture. The 11x14 or 12x16 framed version is the right size for most spaces. The painting has an intimate, quiet mood that suits rooms where people read or converse. The painting is part of the Havemeyer Collection, bequeathed to the Met in 1929. Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer was one of the first American collectors to buy Degas, and her collection shaped the way Americans think about Impressionist painting. This is a public domain artwork (CC0), scanned from the original at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 18x24 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.