Detail of The Ballet Class by Degas in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, January 2012

The Ballet Class

Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas, French, 1834 - 1917

Geography: Made in France, Europe

Date: c. 1880

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 32 3/8 x 30 1/4 inches (82.2 x 76.8 cm) Framed: 41 9/16 x 39 5/8 x 2 5/8 inches (105.6 x 100.6 x 6.7 cm)

Curatorial Department: European Painting before 1900, Johnson Collection

Object Location: Gallery 153, European Art 1850-1900, first floor (Lassin Gallery)

Accession Number: W1937-2-1

Credit Line: Purchased with the W. P. Wilstach Fund, 1937

Label:
In this everyday scene from backstage at the Paris Opéra, a ballet instructor observes two young dancers while a mother sits reading in the foreground. Degas spent a great deal of time in the corridors and rehearsal rooms of the Opéra, where he would have seen mothers like this one managing their young daughters' careers. Girls began official ballet classes at age seven or eight in hopes of becoming premiere dancers by their late teens.

Text from: www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/104465.html?mulR=946640413|1