フェルナンド・サーカスのララ嬢

In January 1879 Degas went back again and again to a new circus near the Place Pigalle, close to his studio, to watch one act in particular. The performer was Miss La La, a mixed-race acrobat famous for her strength, and her signature turn was the iron jaw. She was hauled up toward the dome, some seventy feet, hanging from a rope gripped in her teeth. Degas paints her mid-climb, seen from below, her body swung out against the girders and coloured glass of the roof. He was less interested in her face than in the dizzying angle, and he made careful studies of how the ribs of the ceiling actually met, which is why the architecture takes up most of the canvas. He showed it at the Impressionist exhibition that opened in April 1879, the same year he watched her work.