Impressionism

The Ballet Class

Degas painted at least two major versions of a ballet class — the one at the Musée d'Orsay (c. 1871) and a larger, more elaborate one now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1873–76).

Edgar Degas · 1871

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The famous ballet master Jules Perrot, shown center-stage leaning on his stick, was already retired and in his seventies when Degas depicted him — Degas painted him from memory and old prints, since Perrot had long since moved back to St. Petersburg to lead the Imperial Ballet, a post he'd left more than a decade before this canvas was painted.

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Facts & legends

Degas painted at least two major versions of a ballet class — the one at the Musee d'Orsay (c. 1871) and a larger, more elaborate version at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1873–76), and he kept reworking the theme obsessively for over two decades.
The famous ballet master Jules Perrot, shown center-stage leaning on his stick, was already retired and in his seventies when Degas depicted him — Degas painted him from memory and old prints, since Perrot had long since moved back to St. Petersburg.
Degas was not painting romance: the Paris Opera Ballet of the 1870s was essentially a meat market where wealthy male subscribers, called "abonnés," had backstage access to the dancers, and Degas knew this world intimately as a regular visitor.
X-ray analysis of Degas's ballet paintings has revealed that he frequently repositioned figures, painting dancers out and moving them around the canvas — some finished works contain three or four "ghost" figures hidden beneath the surface.
Degas's eyesight began deteriorating seriously in the 1870s, around the time he painted this work, and by the end of his life he was nearly blind — the loose, sketch-like quality of his later ballet scenes was partly a practical response to failing vision, not purely a stylistic choice.
The work entered the Musee d'Orsay collection via the Louvre, which received it as part of the Camondo bequest in 1911 — Count Isaac de Camondo, a Parisian banker of Sephardic descent, assembled one of the finest Degas collections in private hands and left it entirely to the French state.

Source: Wikidata

More details Why Degas shows the end of class rather than perfect dancing, who the strict old man was, why the floorboards were moistened, and how tired pupils' casual gestures became a calculated composition.

Class is almost over

Exhaustion replaces spectacle

One pupil still performs while others stretch, scratch, fix hair, clothing, earrings, and ribbons. Orsay identifies the instant when discipline loosens and the body reveals exhausting work.

Degas chooses repetition, waiting, boredom, and relief before the stage rather than weightless performance.

For many pupils this was not a genteel pastime but a possible profession. Girls often came from modest families; success offered income, while training demanded time, health, and expense. Degas does not paint a social tract, yet his pauses dismantle the fantasy of effortless grace. Every stage arabesque rests on sore feet, repetition, and constant judgement.

The old teacher was real

Jules Perrot embodies strict training

The central figure is Jules Perrot, celebrated dancer and European ballet master. Though no longer formally directing the Paris Opéra, he becomes Degas's image of authority.

His cane beats time on the floor as well as supporting him; its vertical steadies a group already drifting away.

Perrot was already a legend of an earlier generation, having danced and choreographed in Paris, London, and Saint Petersburg and worked with Carlotta Grisi. Degas drew him repeatedly. Grey head and solid body contrast with the pupils, but he is not a caricature. Ear, memory, and baton preserve an order the girls briefly allow themselves to escape.

This is the old Opera

A musician friend opened the backstage world

Degas visited the rue Le Peletier theatre as spectator and backstage guest before the Garnier building existed. That opera house burned in 1873 as related compositions developed.

The scene still is not photographic documentation: studies, models, and architectural fragments form a convincing invented room.

Backstage access did not mean every figure was painted on site. Degas invited models to his studio, had them repeat isolated poses, drew them, and moved them between compositions. Some girls recur across sheets and canvases like members of his own repertory company. Gestures are observed; the single event is constructed.

The floor is a protagonist

Boards organize perspective and labour

A raised viewpoint sends floorboards diagonally into depth. The parquet was moistened to prevent slipping and struck by the master's cane.

Its lines set distances between bodies and make the eye travel like a dancer repeating an exercise.

A watering can near the far wall is easy to miss but explains the boards' sheen: floors were dampened against dust and slipping. The piano is cropped, the mirror doubles fragments, and a distant dog adds domestic interruption. Such details keep perspective from becoming abstract geometry. The room almost suggests wet wood, cloth, and a long rehearsal.

Accident is carefully staged

Years of studies create a passing glance

Cut edges, turned backs, and empty foreground suggest immediacy, but Degas repeatedly drew these poses. He worked on the Paris canvas from 1873 to 1876 and revised the related Met commission for about two years.

Modernity comes not from abandoning calculation but from making calculation resemble distracted attention.

Degas's audience knew ballet from auditorium and backstage. Wealthy subscribers could enter the foyer de la danse and meet performers, giving these images a social background that was not always innocent. No male patron appears here; the female working group remains central. Without an audience, dancers are not decorations for someone else's evening but people inhabiting their own time of labour and waiting.

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