Two Dancers

This pastel shows two dancers preparing for their performance. Their gestures indicate that they are adjusting their earrings and coiffures. Degas has limited his palette to two colours: pink and blue-green. As so often in his work, he chose to focus on the dancers’ movements and poses – their bodies rather than the girls as individuals. This pastel is part of a series of pictures based on photographs Degas took in his studio in Montmartre.