About This Artwork

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas
French, 1834-1917

Ballet at the Paris Opera, 1877

Pastel over monotype on cream laid paper
352 x 706 mm (plate); 359 x 719 mm (sheet)
Signed recto, lower left, in white pastel: "Degas"
Gift of Mary and Leigh Block, 1981.12

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, "Exposition Degas," April 12-May 2, 1924, p. 63, cat. 113.

Washington D.C., The National Gallery of Art, "100 European Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Leigh B. Block," May 4-June 11, 1967, cat. 6; traveled to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, September 21-November 2, 1967.

The Art Institute of Chicago, "Degas in The Art Institute of Chicago," July 19-September 23, 1984, pp. 72-74, cat. 31 (ill.), cat. by Richard R. Brettell and Suzanne Folds McCullagh.

Detroit Institute of Arts, "Degas and the Dance," October 20, 2002-January 12, 2003, p. 166, pl. 183; traveled to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, February 12-May 11, 2003.

Publication History

Paul André Lemoisne, Degas et son Oeuvre (Paris, 1946), no. 513 (ill.).

Fiorella Minervino, L'Opera Completa di Degas (Milan, 1970), no. 724.

George T.M. Shackelford, Degas: The Dancers, exh. cat. (Washington D.C., 1984), p. 30, fig. 1.6.

The New Paintings: Impressionism 1874-1886, exh. cat. (San Francisco, 1986), p. 204.

Richard Brettell, French Impressionists (Chicago, 1987), pp. 20-22, and 117 (ill.).

Jean Sutherland Boggs and Anne Maheux, Degas Pastels (New York, 1992), p. 52 (ill.).

James N. Wood and Sally Ruth May, The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide (Chicago, 1993), p. 214 (ill.).

Jean Sutherland Boggs, Degas (Chicago, 1996), pp. 30-31, 33(ill. detail), 82 (ill.), and 108, pl. 11.

Jill DeVonyar and Richard Kendall, Degas and the Dance (New York, 2002), pp.165, no. 183 (ill.).

The Essential Guide (Chicago, 2009), p. 302 (ill.).

Ownership History

Albert Hecht, Paris, by April 1924 [Paris 1924]. M. and Mme. Emmanuel (died 1956) Pontremoli, Paris, by 1939 [Lemoisne 1946]. Mary and Leigh Block, Chicago, by May 1967 [Washington DC 1967]; given to the Art Institute, 1981.