This is a relatively small canvas for Degas’s late work, and indeed, some of the dancers’ poses look back to his earlier ballet pictures from the 1870s.
Here, a group of dancers are on stage preparing themselves for the impending performance: they practise their positions and one ballerina stoops to tie her shoe.
The dancers are not individuals, but faceless memories of a scene he had once observed.
Edgar Degas | Before the Performance, 1896 | National Galleries of Scotland