Músicos en la orquesta (Retrato de Désiré Dihau)

Around 1870 Degas began working in the orchestra pit of the Paris Opera, which was then still housed on the rue Le Peletier. He started with a friend, Desire Dihau, who played the bassoon there, and this canvas is that single portrait, the player at his instrument in the pit rather than a scene of the whole orchestra. The museum in San Francisco describes it as an oil sketch for the larger, crowded picture of the pit that is now in Paris. The opera house itself burned down in October 1873, three years or so after Degas sat in it, so the room survives mainly in paintings like this. The large version stayed with the family. Dihau's sister Marie kept it on her wall in Paris under an agreement with the state, and it was only shown publicly after her death in 1935.