La clase de danza

This is Degas's first painting of a dance class, made around 1870, and it opened the subject that would occupy him for the rest of his career. At this point he had no permission to go backstage at the Paris Opera, where he would later spend countless hours watching rehearsals. So the dancers came to him instead, posing in his studio while he worked out how to arrange them. It is a small panel painted on wood, plainer and more hushed than the crowded classroom scenes to come. One dancer stands at the centre adjusting her position while another sits resting to the side, on a bare studio floor rather than a theatre stage.