The Ballet Class

Degas spent years hanging around the rehearsal rooms of the Paris Opera, and this is what he watched: a class winding down, an old instructor eyeing two tired girls while a mother reads in the foreground, waiting. Ballet was a career a poor family might gamble on. Girls entered the school around seven or eight, and a mother like this one came along to manage things, since a daughter who climbed the ranks could support a household. Degas catches them off guard, mid-yawn and mid-stretch, none of them holding a pretty pose. One dancer at the back is balanced on a single toe and clearly about to tip.