The Dancing Class (about 1870)

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Degas Dance Class 1871: Introduction

A large standing mirror divides this small painted room. A dancer near the centre steps across the floor, while others gather around a piano and a seated musician at the left or practice near the door at the right. Reflections complicate the scene: some bodies appear again in the glass, so the room seems more crowded than a quick glance first suggests. Degas gives us a class made of individual movements rather than a single formal pose. ^{[1] [5]}

The pictured work is the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s The Dancing Class, accession 29.100.184. The museum dates it about 1870, calls it Degas’s first depiction of a dance class, and identifies its medium as oil on wood. It is distinct from the Met’s larger 1874 The Dance Class and the National Gallery of Art’s horizontal canvas of about 1873. ^[1][3][4]

The Dancing Class at a Glance

• ArtistEdgar Degas (1834–1917)
• Owner and numberMetropolitan Museum of Art, 29.100.184
• DateAbout 1870
• MediumOil on wood
• Size19.7 × 27 cm
• Distinguishing detailsCentral standing mirror, piano and seated musician at left, dancers dispersed across a small studio

Contents

1. Introduction
2. At a Glance
3. A Class Built in the Studio
4. Natural Movement and Learned Steps
5. Why the Date and Title Matter

A Class Built in the Studio

The Met makes a point that changes how we should read this image. When Degas began this subject, he did not yet have backstage access at the Paris Opéra. Dancers came to his studio to pose, and those sessions produced studies he could adapt in later work. This painted class should therefore not be presented as a literal report of one visit to an Opéra rehearsal. Its believable movement is the result of observation, posing and construction. ^[1]

That fact gives the mirror another role. It helps Degas combine several figures and views in a tight space. The dancer seen in reflection is not simply a decoration behind the central figure; she allows the eye to notice motion and costume from another angle. At the left, the piano and seated musician locate the practice within a working room. At the right, a dancer turned away near the dark door stretches the composition to its edge. Every figure need not perform at once for the room to feel occupied. These are observations of the image, not identifications of named dancers. ^[1]

The panel itself is small, just 19.7 × 27 cm. Reproductions on a large screen can hide that fact. Degas fitted the mirror, furnishings, several figures and open floor onto a piece of wood little larger than a page. The modest scale encourages close looking: a pale skirt in the reflection, a dark instrument at the left and the dancer’s feet on the floor may take several passes to separate. ^[1]

Watch: Edgar Degas

Explore his paintings, drawings and sculpture in three short videos.

Degas, The Dance Class

Smarthistory

Look closely at Degas’s off-duty dancers and his unusual view into the rehearsal room.

Watch on YouTube

▶01 · PaintingThe Dance ClassSmarthistory▶02 · DrawingDrawing movementThe Met▶03 · SculptureConserving DegasThe Met

Natural Movement and Learned Steps

The Met’s essay on ballet describes Degas’s classroom pictures as moving between ordinary actions and rehearsed dance. That relationship is visible here. One dancer seems to cross the room, others wait or turn, and figures near the back practice. A class is a place where studied movement grows from many less formal motions. The painting can hold both without treating a step as the only event worth seeing. ^[1][2]

The figures also do not give us a record of how a particular lesson was taught. We do not know the day, the names of the dancers or whether the gestures were performed together. The Met’s account of studio posing argues against turning the picture into a transcript of an Opéra class. It is more precise to say that Degas drew on dancers and their practice to make a composed image of training. ^[1]

Look back at the musician and piano. They keep practice connected to sound, but the painting cannot tell us which music was being played. A viewer can imagine the rhythm that might have organized a class while recognising that no specific score is documented for this scene. That gap between painted evidence and possible experience is part of looking carefully. ^[1]

Why the Date and Title Matter

The Met dates this panel about 1870. “About” acknowledges the museum’s dating rather than claiming a documented day or even a certain year. The owner also uses The Dancing Class, a title slightly different from its later The Dance Class. These small label differences help prevent a larger mistake: attaching the image or history of one painting to another. ^[1][3]

The 1874 Met painting, 1987.47.1, is a much larger vertical canvas with Jules Perrot attending to a dancer. Our page on that painting explains its own group of figures, patron and exhibition history. The Washington Dance Class, 2014.79.710, is a horizontal room with a spiral stair at left and a red-jacketed seated dancer at right. Its separate page retains that identity. Neither picture has this panel’s central standing mirror and compact, piano-side gathering. ^[3][4]

The Met records this small panel as part of the H. O. Havemeyer Collection, bequeathed by Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer in 1929. That collection detail belongs to accession 29.100.184. It should not be carried across to the larger Met canvas merely because the same museum owns both. A consistent owner, number, date and medium are the surest guide through Degas’s recurring subject. ^[1]

Start your final look at the piano, then follow the figures past the mirror toward the dancer at the right-hand door. The modest panel invites a slow scan. What first appears to be a crowded glimpse resolves into a deliberate arrangement of practice, pause and reflection. ^[1][2]

References

1. Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Dancing Class, ca. 1870, oil on wood, accession 29.100.184; object record and curatorial text. View source
2. Jean Sorabella, Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The Ballet”, 2004, especially its discussion of Degas’s classroom scenes. View source
3. Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Dance Class, 1874, oil on canvas, accession 1987.47.1. View source
4. National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Dance Class, c. 1873, oil on canvas, accession 2014.79.710. View source
5. Splash image: Edgar Degas, The Dancing Class, c. 1870, oil on wood. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 29.100.184. Collection record. View source

Related DEGAS Paintings

Dance Class

The Ballet from Robert le Diable

Orchestra Musicians

The Millinery Shop

On the Racecourse

Dancers Backstage

A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers

Portrait of James Tissot