# The Dance Class

**Edgar Degas** (French, 1834–1917)  
1874  
Oil on canvas  
32 7/8 x 30 3/8 in. (83.5 x 77.2 cm)

Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987.47.1. [The museum's record](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/438817).

## About this work

Dancers stretch, wait and fidget while the veteran ballet master Jules Perrot, leaning on a tall staff, takes a class in a rehearsal room of the Paris Opéra. Degas pushes him off-centre and lets the eye drift through the room instead, to dancers stretching, resting or simply waiting their turn. The setting is the Opéra’s old house on the rue Le Peletier, destroyed by fire in 1873, so the scene was assembled in the studio from drawings and posed models. What interested Degas was not the performance but the restless, unglamorous moments around it.

_Written by Ochre Editions._

Edgar Degas painted this in 1874, aged 40. It is now at The Met in New York.

### How it was made

- **Oil paint.** Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.

### [Edgar Degas](https://www.ochreeditions.com/artists/edgar-degas)

French, 1834–1917; born in Paris; died in Paris

Degas trained in the academic tradition, admired Ingres and spent three years in Italy copying earlier art, but turned to modern Paris for his subjects: dancers, racecourses, laundresses, milliners and café singers. He helped organise the Impressionist exhibitions and showed in all but one, yet preferred to call himself a realist. Working from drawing and memory rather than outdoors, he composed with unexpected cropping and viewpoints, and in later years worked mostly in pastel as his eyesight failed.

_Written by Ochre Editions._

## Facts

- Type: Paintings
- The artist was 40
- Real size: about 33 × 30 in (84 × 77 cm). The 20 × 30 in print is close to life size.
- Century: 19th century
- Movement: [Impressionism](https://www.ochreeditions.com/movements/impressionism)
- Subjects: Girls, Men, Women, Students, Dancers, Ballet
- Colour: brown
- Rights: public domain (CC0 1.0); free to use for any purpose.

## Get it

- Free download, full resolution: https://img.ochreeditions.com/m/1193.jpg?dl=1
- Image: https://img.ochreeditions.com/a/1193/1920.jpg
- Giclée reproduction on Hahnemühle Photo Rag: 8 × 10 in $28; 11 × 14 in $38; 12 × 16 in $42; 16 × 20 in $56; 18 × 24 in $68; 20 × 30 in $86; 24 × 36 in $108
- Framed reproduction: 8 × 10 in $78; 11 × 14 in $98; 12 × 16 in $108; 16 × 20 in $138; 18 × 24 in $164; 20 × 30 in $208; 24 × 36 in $258
- Canvas reproduction: 8 × 10 in $58; 11 × 14 in $72; 12 × 16 in $79; 16 × 20 in $98; 18 × 24 in $118; 20 × 30 in $148; 24 × 36 in $178
- Print-ready file: 8 × 10 in $2; 11 × 14 in $2; 12 × 16 in $3; 16 × 20 in $3; 18 × 24 in $3; 20 × 30 in $5; 24 × 36 in $5

Sizes stop where the museum's file would print below 150 pixels per inch. Everything sold is a reproduction, made to order. [Order a print](https://www.ochreeditions.com/art/the-dance-class-met-438817).