A long, brightly lit room is filled with at least nine young ballerinas in robin’s egg-blue dance costumes and pale pink shoes in this wide, horizontal painting. They all have light skin and brown or dark blond hair. The studio is lit from the left, and more light pours in through two windows toward the back. The wall closest to us is mint green with brown wainscoting covering the lower half, and a small mirror hanging a short distance down the wall. The walls of the space farther from us and the scuffed, worn floor are both painted with tan layered with washes of moss green and denim blue.…
Gallery mode Full size at the museum

The Dance Lesson

painter Edgar Degas (French, 1834 - 1917)

c. 1879

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
overall: 38 x 88 cm (14 15/16 x 34 5/8 in.) ; framed: 59.7 x 108.3 x 5.1 cm (23 1/2 x 42 5/8 x 2 in.)
Culture
French
Museum
National Gallery of Art, CF
Credit line
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
Rights
Public domain (NGA Open Access, CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed

View at the National Gallery of Art

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