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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 Russian Dancers: Introduction
Three women move across a grassy slope with their arms raised behind their heads. Their white blouses and red boots repeat from figure to figure, while green, blue and violet skirts make each dancer distinct. Edgar Degas made this large pastel around 1899. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, which owns it as 98.278, retains the historical title Russian Dancers. Its own catalogue explains that the costumes and dance are Ukrainian. The page therefore uses Ukrainian Dancers (Russian Dancers) for this particular artwork, without assigning an ethnic identity to any unnamed individual depicted in it. [1][2][6] [7]
This is one of several related Degas pastels, not a generic illustration of the subject. The older site illustration matched the Houston sheet's arrangement and its three differently coloured skirts. Other compositions of dancers in Ukrainian dress survive in London, New York and Stockholm. Those works share figures and a late subject, but they are not interchangeable images of the Houston pastel. [2][3][4]
The artwork at a glance
- ArtistEdgar Degas (1834–1917)
- Current page titleUkrainian Dancers (Russian Dancers)
- Owner catalogue titleRussian Dancers
- DateAbout 1899
- MediumPastel on tracing paper mounted on cardboard; the catalogue raisonné also records charcoal
- Sheet size62.2 × 62.9 cm
- CollectionMuseum of Fine Arts, Houston, 98.278
- Catalogue numbersMS 384; Lemoisne 1183
Contents
- Introduction
- At a Glance
- Three figures, one unfolding movement
- Why the title needs explanation
- Pastel as a constructed surface
- From Degas’s studio to Houston
Three figures, one unfolding movement
The dancers overlap so closely that a hand, skirt or leg can at first seem to belong to the wrong figure. At the left, green turns inward. The middle skirt is deep blue, and the violet skirt at right swings forward. Each woman bends and kicks, but not in precisely the same direction. Degas makes a sequence of related gestures out of their differences. The repeated white sleeves form a bright zigzag across the upper half, while the red boots carry the movement downward into the grass. [2]
The Houston catalogue draws attention to how the violet figure's direction differs from the other two. It also explains Degas's use of tracing paper to reverse and rearrange figures across the series. A single figure now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art corresponds to the central dancer in the Houston pastel; another Houston drawing reverses the violet figure. The painting-like density of the finished sheet does not erase its basis in drawing and repeated design. [2][5]
The setting is striking because Degas's better-known ballet dancers occupy rehearsal rooms, wings and stages. Here, the women dance before a low hill under a broad sky. The grass is built of short, varied marks rather than a detailed landscape. It gives the figures ground to move across without locating a particular performance. The museum's catalogue connects the costumes and the kicking dance to Ukrainian traditions but says the exact group Degas saw in Paris cannot be identified. That limit matters: this is an arranged work of art, not a documentary record of a named troupe or a named ceremony. [2]
Why the title needs explanation
The title Russian Dancers belongs to the Houston museum's current object record and to earlier catalogues. It reflects a period when Ukraine was within the Russian Empire and Ukrainian subjects were often labelled Russian in Western accounts. The Houston catalogue specifically identifies the clothing and movement as Ukrainian. The National Gallery in London now titles its different pastel Ukrainian Dancers, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art titles its related sheet Dancers in Ukrainian Dress. These institutional choices support using Ukrainian in the visible heading while preserving Houston's owner title in the factual record. [1][2][3][4]
The names of the three women are not recorded. Their dress and steps can be discussed without claiming that Degas knew where each performer was born. Nor should the work be attached confidently to one performance. An older subtitle connected it to a Ballets Russes production, but the Houston catalogue rejects that chronology: Degas was already showing these pastels in 1899, before that company began performing. The account of Julie Manet's 1899 studio visit is firmer evidence that a group of folk-dancer pastels existed by then. The catalogue connects her description of one sheet's evening sky with the Houston composition. [2]
Watch: Edgar Degas
Explore his paintings, drawings and sculpture in three short videos.
Degas, The Dance Class
Look closely at Degas’s off-duty dancers and his unusual view into the rehearsal room.
Watch on YouTubePastel as a constructed surface
Degas used pastel here with the force of paint, laying bright strokes over darker drawn contours. The blue skirt is not a flat patch of blue; red, purple and lighter marks break it up. Similar overlaps animate the violet and green cloth. The white blouses gather reflected tones from the scene, while the sky shifts across pale yellows and muted purples. The figures appear to move because the lines remain restless, especially around arms, hair ornaments and hems. [2]
Tracing paper let Degas transfer and reverse poses. It was also the support of the finished sheet, later mounted on cardboard. The Houston catalogue describes visible charcoal outlines beneath the dense pastel. A technical reading of the sheet therefore joins two things that can seem opposed: careful reuse of drawn forms and the impression of a moment passing quickly. The artist's late work often pursued such combinations of line, colour and movement rather than a single spontaneous record. [1][2]
Several versions demonstrate this process without collapsing their identities. The Met's 1975.1.166 is another wide composition of three dancers in the series, with different colours and figure relationships. The National Gallery's NG6581 is a taller sheet in which Degas joined additional paper at the bottom to complete a dancer's leg. The Stockholm work NMB 380 also groups three figures, but its arrangement and palette differ from Houston's. Comparing them reveals how Degas could return to the same motif and make a new composition each time. [2][3][4]
From Degas’s studio to Houston
The museum records the work with the dealer Ambroise Vollard by 1914. It later belonged to Mary S. Higgins in Worcester, Massachusetts, passed through a 1971 sale and Acquavella Galleries, and was bought by John and Audrey Jones Beck that year. Audrey Jones Beck gave it to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 1998. Those steps identify this sheet independently of other pastels long called “Russian Dancers.” [1]
Seen close, the three dancers are neither anonymous repetitions nor identifiable portraits. Their shared costume joins them; their differently coloured skirts and opposing directions keep them apart. The older title survives in Houston's catalogue, while a clearer account of the Ukrainian dress and dance helps us see what the image actually represents. The artwork remains a record of Degas's decisions about shape and colour, and of how late in life he tested one movement in several related forms. [2]
Artworks directory
A selected index of documented works, combining owner records with entries sampled across Michel Schulman’s digital catalogue raisonné. It is not a complete catalogue. View the full catalogue
Discussion
Share what you notice in Degas’s russian dancers.
Reader Insights
How do the three skirt colours separate the dancers?
Which raised arms and moving legs appear to repeat?
What does the open landscape add to this late pastel?
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References
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Russian Dancers, 98.278, owner object record, medium, size, credit and provenance. View source
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Beck Collection catalogue, Russian Dancers, Helga Kessler Aurisch, object essay and documented notes on chronology, Ukrainian costume, comparative studies and technique. View source
- National Gallery, London, Ukrainian Dancers, NG6581, distinct work and present title. View source
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dancers in Ukrainian Dress, 1975.1.166, distinct work in the series. View source
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dancer in Ukrainian Dress, 29.100.556, single-figure work related to the group compositions. View source
- Degas Digital Critical Catalogue, Danseuses russes, MS 384, catalogue number, dating, medium, provenance and bibliography. View source
- Edgar Degas, Russian Dancers (Ukrainian dress), c. 1899, pastel on tracing paper mounted on cardboard. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 98.278. Collection record. View source
