Dancers Backstage

1876/1883

Edgar Degas

Artist, French, 1834 - 1917

We look slightly down onto a loosely painted scene with three ballerinas in rose-pink costumes and one man, wearing a black suit and top hat, against a backdrop made up of dabs and strokes of lime, mint, and pine green in this vertical painting. The people all appear to have light skin. The most defined person is the woman closest to us, shown from the knees up to the right of center. Her body is angled to our left, and her profile faces that direction. Dark eyelashes suggest her eyes are closed. She has a pointed nose, and her red lips are closed. Dark brown hair is pulled up into a large bun with a coral-pink flower tucked in at the back of her head. She grips opposite elbows at her waist, her arms close to her body. Her pink costume has a low-cut bodice with loops low over her shoulders and a flaring, knee-length tutu. She wears a black choker tied with a bow at the back of her neck and two black bands encircle her wrists. A touch of white at the ear we can see suggests a gold earring. To our right and cut off by the right edge of the painting, a man stands beyond the woman’s shoulder, in shadow as he looks onto the scene. His face is painted with taupe-gray strokes. His suit and top hat are black except for a narrow white collar at his neck. Beyond this pair and seen from the chest up between them, another woman in the same pink costume faces our right. A short distance from us to our left, a third ballerina stands facing away from us. The elephant-gray floor she stands on visually creates a vertical band up the left side of the composition. The rest of the space behind and around the man and dancers is painted loosely with shades of vibrant to muted greens, with a few dabs of pale pink. The painting has a narrow sand-brown border. The artist signed the work by incising into the green paint in the upper right corner, “Degas.”

Media Options

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Dancers Backstage depicts an informal, behind-the-scenes moment at the ballet—the type of scene that most intrigued Degas. Four figures occupy the painting: a dancer who stands onstage with her back to the viewer and a group of three figures—two dancers and a man in black evening clothes—who stand just offstage behind a painted stage flat.

The interaction between the man and the dancer to his left is the fulcrum of the composition. The man’s attire marks him as an abonné, one of the wealthy male subscribers to the Paris Opéra. Accorded the privilege of backstage access, the abonnés often lurked in the wings while productions were under way and flirted with the young dancers. There can be no mistaking the man’s intentions toward the woman beside him. In response, the dancer has turned away, her stance—head tilted down and arms folded—suggesting indifference.

Given its modest scale and rapidly painted surface, Dancers Backstage may have been intended as a sketch for a larger work. No such work was ever executed, however, and it is equally possible that Degas considered this jewel-like painting fully realized. He showed it to great acclaim in 1881 at the sixth impressionist exhibition.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 24.2 x 18.8 cm (9 1/2 x 7 3/8 in.)
    framed: 43.5 × 38.1 × 9.53 cm (17 1/8 × 15 × 3 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1970.17.25

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Théodore Duret [1838-1927], Paris; (his sale, Galerie George Petit, Paris, 19 March 1894, no. 12); purchased by (Durand-Ruel, Paris); transferred 27 February 1895 to to (Durand-Ruel, New York); sold 31 December 1928 to (Alex Reid & Lefèvre, Glasgow and London);[1] possibly sold 1929 to D.W.T. Cargill [1872-1939]. [2] (Carroll Carstairs Gallery, New York); sold 3 June 1948 to Ailsa Mellon Bruce [1901-1969], New York;[3] bequest 1970 to NGA.
[1] Information regarding Durand-Ruel's acquisition and disposition of the painting according to a letter dated 20 December 1977, in NGA curatorial files.
[2] A painting of this subject, very close in dimensions to the NGA picture, listed in
Reid & Lefèvre Pictures Sold, sheet no. 146, #274/28 B 1642, as acquired December 1928 from Durand-Ruel and sold to Cargill in April 1929. (Lefèvre archives, Hyman Kreitman Research Centre, Tate Britain, London, TGA 2002/11, Box 283). The Reid & Lefèvre painting is dated 1882, and a Reid & Lefèvre label on the back of the NGA picture likewise gives this date. There are no Degas paintings included in Cargill's estate sale held at Christie's, London, 2 May 1947.
[3] Date and source of Mrs. Bruce's acquisition according to her records, now in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1881

  • Possibly Le 6me Exposition de Peinture [Sixth Impressionist Exhibition], Paris, 1881, as Vue de coulisses, not in catalogue.

1949

  • A Loan Exhibition of Degas for the Benefit of the New York Infirmary, Wildenstein, New York, 1949, no. 78, repro., as On the Stage

1961

  • French Paintings of the Nineteenth Century from the Collection of Mrs. Mellon Bruce, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1961, no. 18, repro

1966

  • French Paintings from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and Mrs. Mellon Bruce, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966, no. 61, repro

1984

  • Degas: The Dancers, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1984-1985, no. 5, repro.

1987

  • The Private Degas, Arts Council of Great Britain, The Whitworth Gallery, University of Manchester; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1987, no. 41, repro.

2006

  • Degas: o universo de um artista [Degas: The Universe of an Artist], Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, 2006, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2008

  • The Dancer: Degas, Forain, and Toulouse-Lautrec, Portland (Oregon) Art Museum, 2008, unnumbered catalogue, pls. 47, 55, and 152.

2009

  • De la Scène au tableau, Musée Cantini, Marseille; Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 2009-2010, no. 164, repro.

2011

  • Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The National Art Center, Tokyo; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, 2011, no. 16, repro.

2013

  • Intimate Impressionism from the National Gallery of Art, Museo dell'Ara Pacis Augustae, Rome (exhibition title in this venue: Impressionist Gems); California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio; Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo, Seattle Art Museum, 2013-2016, pl. 36.

2018

  • Innovative Impressions: Prints by Cassatt, Degas, and Pissarro, The Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, 2018, no. 42, repro.

2019

  • Degas at the Opera, Musée d'Orsay, Paris; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2019-2020, no. 274, repro.

Bibliography

1946

  • Lemoisne, Paul André. Degas et son oeuvre. 4 vols. Paris: Arts et metiers graphiques, 1946-1949: III: 596, no. 1024, repro.

1970

  • Minervino, Fiorella. L'Opera Completa di Degas. Milan, 1970: no. 859, repro.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 100, repro.

1978

  • Small French Paintings from the Bequest of Ailsa Mellon Bruce. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1978: 24, repro. (continuing exhibition beginning in 1978).

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 478, no. 708, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 121, repro.

Inscriptions

upper right: Degas

Wikidata ID

Q20188812

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