Ballet at the Paris Opéra

1877 · Pastel over monotype on cream laid paper

Can I see it?

Not on view at present

Where is “Ballet at the Paris Opéra” now? Collection: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.

Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 13 days ago
In this state since: Aug 16, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

About the work

One of the nineteenth century’s most innovative artists, Edgar Degas often combined traditional techniques in unorthodox ways. In Ballet at the Paris Opéra, the artist creatively joined the monotype technique, rarely used in his time, with the fragile medium of pastel. Described as “the powder of butterfly wings,” pastel was the perfect medium to illustrate the onstage metamorphosis of spindly young dancers into visions of beauty as perfect and short-lived as butterflies. This work, executed on one of the widest monotype plates ever used by the artist, bears Degas’s characteristically cropped forms and odd vantage points, which effectively convey the immediacy of the scene. The view is from the orchestra pit, with the necks of the double basses intruding into the dancers’ zone. The central dancer is in fifth position, en pointe, but the random placement of the corps de ballet, with the dancers’ free-flowing hair, suggests a rehearsal rather than a performance. The Paris Opéra was the official school of the first state-supported ballet, the Académie Royale de Danse, created in 1661.

Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0

Details

What it shows

Dancer Leisure Labor Woman

In the catalog

Prints Realism Impressionism 19th century France

Sources

Art Institute of Chicago
Image: Art Institute of Chicago — CC0 / public domain (AIC image API)

In the life of Edgar Degas

The whole life

1870s
From “de Gas” back to plain “Degas”
The archives disproved the legend of an ancient noble line: the artist's paternal ancestors were bakers, and the name “de Gas” was invented by his father, who commissioned a false genealogy. In the 1870s Edgar returned to the plain spelling, Degas.
mid-1870s
Back to etching, and monotype
After a ten-year break Degas returned to etching, at first guided by his old friend Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic, and began experimenting with lithography and monotype; he produced some 300 monotypes.
second half of the 1870s
Pastel becomes his main medium
Degas increasingly chose pastel, often combining it with monotype, lithography, etching or gouache. To keep the colour from darkening under ordinary fixatives he devised his own method of fixing and applied pastel in layers.
1877
Friendship with Mary Cassatt
Degas invited Mary Cassatt to show in the third Impressionist exhibition, having admired her portrait “Ida” at the Salon of 1874. He introduced her to pastel and engraving, while she helped him sell paintings and promoted his reputation in the United States.
autumn 1879 – April 1880
The prints journal: Degas abruptly withdraws
In the autumn and winter of 1879–1880 Degas and Cassatt worked closely together on a prints journal; he owned a small printing press. In April 1880 Degas abruptly withdrew, and without his support the project folded.