Artwork
The Dance Class
The Dance Class is an oil painting by the Impressionist artist Edgar Degas. It dates from 1874 and is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
About this work
Dancers fill a studio, stretching or waiting their turn. Degas loved ballet, but this is practice, not performance: the dancers look tired, and nothing about it is glamorous. Edgar Degas painted it in oil in 1874.
Subject & Meaning
This poster serves as a symbolic tribute to the opera singer Jean-Baptiste Faure, who commissioned the piece.
The work depicts an imaginary ballet class supervised by the renowned master Jules Perrot, featuring dancers and students within the setting of the old Paris Opera, a venue that had actually burned down the year prior to the painting's creation in 1874. This scene, considered one of Degas's most ambitious treatments of the ballet theme, includes specific iconographic details such as a poster for Rossini's Guillaume Tell on the wall. This poster serves as a symbolic tribute to the opera singer Jean-Baptiste Faure, who commissioned the piece.
The composition captures the dynamic atmosphere of the dance studio while blending realistic observation with a constructed narrative, highlighting the relationship between the artist, the patron, and the world of 19th-century French performance.
Technique & Style
The Dance Class is an 1874 oil painting on canvas by Edgar Degas, executed in the Impressionist style that characterizes his late‑career ballet scenes. The work depicts a dance class supervised by Jules Perrot in the former Paris Opera, a subject Degas treated as one of his most ambitious treatments of the ballet theme. Its medium of oil on canvas allows a smooth handling of pigment, and the painting’s composition balances the figures and architectural space typical of Degas’s Impressionist approach. The canvas is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
History & Provenance
The Dance Class was commissioned in 1874 by the operatic singer Jean‑Baptiste Faure and executed by Edgar Degas as an oil on canvas. The painting imagines a ballet lesson supervised by the renowned master Jules Perrot set in the old Paris Opera house, which had burned down the year before. Since its completion the work has entered the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it is displayed in Gallery 815. No further ownership transfers are recorded in the available sources.
The Dance Class is housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it is part of the museum’s permanent collection and exhibited in Gallery 815. Its provenance records indicate inclusion in the museum’s holdings since the late nineteenth century, with documented display in the 2nd impressionist exhibition and later in the 1974–1975 centennial exhibition of Impressionism at the Met. The work, painted by Edgar Degas in 1874, remains on public view as of December 2023.
Context
Critical reception of The Dance Class (1874) situates it within Impressionism’s preoccupation with modern urban life, particularly the spectacle of ballet. The work’s ambitious scale and thematic focus on the disciplined yet ephemeral world of dance align it with Degas’s broader exploration of performance and labor. Exhibited at the Second Impressionist Exhibition in 1874, it was noted for its dynamic composition and innovative framing, which emphasized the spatial and social hierarchies of the ballet studio.
The painting’s inclusion in the Metropolitan Museum’s 1974 centenary exhibition underscores its enduring significance within Impressionist canon, where it is paired with its Musée d’Orsay counterpart as a defining treatment of the subject.
Overview
Edgar Degas's 1874 oil painting, The Dance Class, captures an intimate moment from the ballet world. Now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this work is considered one of the artist's most ambitious explorations of dance. It presents an imagined scene of a ballet rehearsal, overseen by a renowned master, offering a glimpse into the rigorous preparations behind public performances.
Own this work as a print
Artist & collection
Artist
Born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas on 19 July 1834 in Paris, Edgar Degas came from an affluent banking family with aristocratic roots and spent his childhood among the cultivated circles of the French capital.
