# Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [DEGAS, Edgar]() - Date: 1851-1900 - Technique: Oil, watercolour, and pastel over pen-and-ink drawing on paper mounted on canvas, 54 x 73 cm ## Commentary There are three similar versions of this scene, and their precise relationship has bedeviled scholars for decades. The largest, painted in grisaille \(Musée d'Orsay, Paris\), appeared in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. The two others, tentatively dated the same year, are in the Metropolitan's collection. This painting probably preceded the version in pastel, which is more freely handled. The importance that Degas attached to the composition is evident in the preparatory drawings that he made for almost every figure, from the dancer scratching her back in the foreground to the woman yawning next to the stage flat. ## Related artworks - [A Ballet Dancer in Position]() - [Absinthe Drinkers]() - [After the Bath]() - [After the Bath. Woman Drying Herself]() - [At the Beach]() - [At the Café des Ambassadeurs]() - [At the Milliner's]() - [At the Milliner's]() - [At the Mirror]() - [At the Races in the Countryside]() - [Aux Ambassadeurs: Mademoiselle Bécat]() - [Ballerina with a Bouquet, Curtsying]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()