Edgar Degas - The Rehearsal of the Ballet on Stage 1874

The Rehearsal of the Ballet on Stage 1874
The Rehearsal of the Ballet on Stage
1874 52x70cm pastel/paper
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

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From Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City:
There are three similar versions of this scene, and their precise relationship has bedeviled scholars for decades. 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. This painting probably preceded the version in pastel (29.100.39), which is more freely handled. The importance that Degas attached to the composition is evident in the preparatory drawings that he made for almost every figure, from the dancer scratching her back in the foreground to the woman yawning next to the stage flat.
- See more at: http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/436155#sthash.kfxs2HDZ.dpuf