The Rehearsal

In February 1874 the writer Edmond de Goncourt visited Degas's studio and wrote in his journal that, of all the subjects of modern life, the painter had picked washerwomen and ballet dancers. This canvas, which Harvard dates to between 1873 and 1878, is one of his earliest paintings of dancers. Under the paint there is a grid he drew to plot the figures, and he later painted out a stairwell and moved several girls so their line across the room would run in one rhythm. A violinist in a dark suit plays for them at the left, and the right half of the floor is left bare in the light from the tall windows. In 1911 a Connecticut collector lent it to the Fogg Museum for a show of 12 Degas paintings, the only museum exhibition he was given in his lifetime.