Tänzerinnen an der Stange

Degas kept coming back to this picture for the better part of 20 years. He began it in the 1880s and was still reworking it around 1900, and conservators have found that he shifted the dancers' legs eight times on the same canvas, chasing a balance he never quite let go of. The two figures lean into the barre, counterweighted against each other. Down in the corner sits a green watering can, an odd, ordinary thing, but dancers really did sprinkle the studio floor to keep the dust down. He never parted with the painting. It was still in his studio when he died in 1917, at 83, nearly blind by the end and working more and more by touch.