Edgar Degas - Three Dancers Preparing for Class [after 1878]

Edgar Degas - Three Dancers Preparing for Class [after 1878], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The seated dancer in this pastel was derived from a study dated December 1878 of the fifteen-year-old Melina Darde. That drawing and those which explored the poses of the two dancers in the foreground belonged to a stock of figure drawings that Degas used for his larger compositions. There is another variant of this pastel also of the mid-1880s (Private collection).

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Pastel on buff-coloured wove paper, 54.6 x 52.1 cm]