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by Tom Gurney Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on September 28, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Degas Mademoiselle Fiocre In The Ballet: Introduction
Eugénie Fiocre sits beside dark water in a blue costume. A red ornament rises above her head, and her form meets a reflection below. Edgar Degas's study for Mademoiselle Fiocre in the Ballet La Source concentrates on a single performer within a quiet, stage-like setting. The pose is still, even though its subject comes from a ballet. Instead of a leap or a brilliant turn, the painting asks us to attend to a dancer at rest, her costume and surrounding water carrying hints of the theatrical world to which she belongs. [1][5]
This is a private-collection oil study, catalogue number MS1624 in Michel Schulman's online Degas catalogue. It is dated about 1866, painted on canvas and measures 73 × 54 cm. The lone blue-costumed figure distinguishes the study from the later multi-figure picture. Degas later developed the Fiocre subject into a much larger, multi-figure painting now in the Brooklyn Museum. The Brooklyn canvas is a separate work. The two works share a ballet and central figure, but they must not share an object record. [1][2]
At a glance
ArtistEdgar Degas
SubjectEugénie Fiocre in the ballet La Source
This workPrivate-collection oil study, Schulman MS1624
DateAbout 1866
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions73 × 54 cm
Related finished paintingBrooklyn Museum 21.111, Schulman MS787, a separate work
Schulman's record also notes an ATELIER ED.DEGAS stamp at the lower right of the study. This is an estate mark associated with its later history, not a signature proving a particular day of execution. The same catalogue traces the picture from Degas's studio through an estate sale in 1918 and later private ownership. Those facts help identify the object even when a public museum accession is absent. They do not turn the study into the Brooklyn painting, which has its own dimensions, history and exhibition record. [1][2]
Eugénie Fiocre and La Source
Eugénie Fiocre was a Paris Opéra dancer who rose to principal ballerina. The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, which owns another related Fiocre study, identifies her as Nourreda, the lead role in La Source. Its account says Degas saw the production in Paris in 1866. That background explains the costume and ballet title without requiring us to treat this small oil as a literal snapshot of a named performance. Degas could use a modern dancer in a theatrical role while making a carefully composed painting rather than a record of an exact step. [3]
The ballet's title means “The Spring” or “The Source,” and the watery setting of the study makes the connection suggestive. A reflected figure beside water can evoke a source within a staged fantasy. Yet the public catalogue used here does not identify a precise scene, prop or theatre backdrop copied from the 1866 production. The visible water may serve Degas's artistic structure as much as it serves a narrative. We can describe the association while avoiding a full plot reconstruction from a small image. [1][3]
Fiocre's status also matters. She is not an unnamed decorative ballerina standing in for all dancers. A named professional performer sits at the center of this project, and the finished Brooklyn painting was exhibited as a portrait connected to her role. The private study isolates her still more strongly. Her blue dress fills much of the figure, while the rest of the scene gives her a place to sit and a reflective counterpart. The costume announces theatre; the seated body asks us to see a person within it. [1][2][3]
That does not grant access to Fiocre's inner life. The museum language for related works suggests contemplation, and the pose is indeed quiet. But we cannot know what the model thought during a sitting or what the staged character felt within the ballet. The painting offers a considered visual state: a dancer not dancing, placed within an invented or adapted landscape. Its stillness can be discussed without assigning the historical woman a specific mood. [1][3]
The lone blue figure
The narrow format keeps attention on Fiocre. Her blue costume carries alternating lighter and darker passages and gathers across her seated body. Against the surrounding dark tones, it makes a central mass that the eye can follow from head to skirt and down toward the water. The red headpiece punctuates the upper part of this movement. These visible color relationships distinguish the study from the much broader Brooklyn painting. It does not need a crowd of characters to establish a theatrical identity. [1]
The red note is small but striking. It makes Fiocre's head immediately findable against a setting where dark foliage or rock-like forms might otherwise absorb it. The blue garment is more expansive. Together, red and blue give the figure both a point of focus and bodily volume. Degas is not simply documenting what a costume designer supplied. He uses the clothing as a pictorial tool to make the seated form cohere within an uneven landscape. [1]
Below, the reflection repeats aspects of the figure without becoming a second person. Water makes the body both present and unstable. A painted reflection can break into darker and lighter marks; it does not need to copy every contour exactly. That doubled image is especially fitting for a performer, whose visible role is itself a constructed appearance. This is a reading of the painting's forms, not a claim that Degas intended a fixed symbol for Fiocre's identity. [1]
The single figure also controls the viewer's pace. We first recognize the blue costume, then the headpiece, then the lower water and its echo. The eye circulates around one seated body rather than scanning a larger cast. The study's 73 × 54-centimetre size supports that concentration. The picture is not miniature, but it is substantially smaller and narrower than Brooklyn's finished canvas. Its scale and format encourage a close encounter with the dancer. [1][2]
From study to larger scene
Schulman's catalogue explicitly relates MS1624 to the finished Brooklyn painting, MS787 / Brooklyn 21.111. The Brooklyn work is dated about 1867 in that catalogue, measures 130 × 144 cm and is oil on canvas. It expands the scene: Fiocre appears with other figures, a horse and a larger landscape. The finished painting was shown at the 1868 Salon, catalogue no. 686. None of those dimensions or Salon facts belongs to the private study. [1][2]
Comparing the two makes the word “study” meaningful. The narrow private canvas isolates the performer and tests how blue costume, pose and reflection work together. The broader finished painting places her within a more complex narrative field. Degas could preserve a central figure while changing the relations around her. That does not mean every brushstroke in MS1624 was copied straight into the final canvas. The relationship is one of development and reconsideration, as far as the public catalogue allows us to say. [1][2]
The finished work's horse and additional people make it a more openly theatrical and narrative image. The study can feel more intimate because such elements are absent. Fiocre's relation to water and costume bears more of the picture's weight. The quieter study is not a cropped detail of the Brooklyn painting. It is a separate oil with its own support, size, private provenance and catalogue number. The distinction is essential to understanding both works. [1][2]
The lone-figure study and the finished multi-figure painting answer different pictorial questions. Degas tests Fiocre's costume, pose and reflection in the private study; the larger scene places her among other people and a horse. The Brooklyn painting is now Brooklyn Museum 21.111. Their similar English titles should not obscure that they are distinct artworks with different dimensions, histories and compositions. [1][2]
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One might expect a ballet image to show moving bodies on a lit stage. Fiocre sits instead. The Buffalo AKG account of its separate study notes Degas's preference here for a contemplative moment rather than a spectacular performance. The private MS1624 image makes a similar contrast visible. Costume identifies the role, but the body rests within the scene. This choice lets Degas present a performer as more than the instant of her technique. [1][3]
Stillness in a theatrical picture can also create suspense. We can imagine movement before or after this pause, yet the canvas gives none of it directly. The reflection holds her form in water while the live dancer sits above it. She is prepared for a role, but not demonstrating it for an audience inside the painting. That gap between costume and action is one of the image's most distinctive features. It makes the figure legible as Fiocre in La Source while allowing a more sustained study of posture, drapery and setting. [1]
Degas would later become closely associated with the Paris Opéra and dancers in rehearsal and on stage. Orsay's Degas at the Opera exhibition places the Brooklyn Fiocre project at the beginning of that long engagement. This private study belongs to the same early exploration, but it should not be turned into a general statement about every later dancer. Its quiet, costumed figure and reflective water have a different kind of stage world from the practice rooms and cropped theatre views that would follow. [1][2][4]
Nor should we claim that the study was made during an actual rehearsal or at the theatre itself. A painting of a role can be planned in a studio and built from sittings, drawings and imagined setting. The accessible MS1624 catalogue entry does not locate each working session. What we can say is that Fiocre's documented role and the ballet title anchor the subject, while Degas's painted arrangement supplies the particular visual form. [1][3]
The study's own later history
The private picture remained in Degas's studio and appeared in the second Degas estate sale of 1918, according to Schulman's catalogue. It later belonged to Mme Friedmann in Paris and appeared at a Christie's London sale in 2006 before returning to a private collection. The catalogue lists public exhibitions in 1931, 1952 and 1960. This history establishes that a private work can still be documented and occasionally seen publicly. It also gives the study a documented identity beyond its familiar title. [1]
The estate stamp in the lower right belongs to that object history. It should not be mistaken for proof that the oil was finished to Degas's satisfaction or selected for Salon display. The finished Brooklyn painting was exhibited at the 1868 Salon; the private study has a separate list of later exhibitions. Combining these two histories would overstate what is known about MS1624's reception during the artist's lifetime. [1][2]
The Brooklyn work's own collection history differs too. Schulman records its passage through Degas's first estate sale and acquisition by the Brooklyn Museum in 1921. It is not a later title for the private study. The precise catalogue numbers—MS1624 for the study, MS787 for the finished painting—are the simplest way to keep those histories apart. Brooklyn's accession 21.111 adds another independent identifier. [1][2]
Looking again
Begin with the red ornament above Fiocre's head, then follow the blue costume down to the seated body. Move from the lower edge into the dark water and its reflection. Notice how few other figures or objects compete with her. Finally, imagine the wider Brooklyn painting and the horse, additional people and landscape it adds. The study's restraint becomes clearer when set against that later expansion. Its purpose for a viewer is not simply to preview a masterpiece; it offers a concentrated encounter with a named performer in a role Degas was beginning to explore. [1][2]
The Mademoiselle Fiocre in the Ballet work discussed here is a private oil study, not the 1868 Salon canvas. Its single blue figure and watery double give a quiet theatrical subject an unusually focused form. The related Brooklyn painting broadens that subject into a larger scene, while the study keeps Fiocre herself at the centre. Identifying MS1624 exactly lets us discuss what is present without importing details from a different work. For more context, see Degas's ballet dancers and the separate Brooklyn Fiocre route. [1][2][3]
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References
Michel Schulman, Degas catalogue raisonné, Mlle Fiocre dans le ballet La Source, MS1624, private study record, search-indexed catalogue text consulted 27 September 2026. View source
Michel Schulman, Mlle Fiocre dans le ballet La Source, MS787, separate finished Brooklyn painting record, accessed 27 September 2026. View source
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Fiocre study 1958:2, separate study and ballet context, accessed 27 September 2026. View source
Musée d'Orsay, Degas at the Opera, exhibition overview, accessed 27 September 2026. View source
Edgar Degas, Mlle Fiocre dans le ballet La Source (study), circa 1866, oil on canvas. Private collection, MS 1624 (Schulman catalogue). Collection record. View source
Tom Gurney is an art history expert. He received a BSc (Hons) degree from Salford University, UK, and has also studied famous artists and art movements for over 20 years.
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