Ballerina with a Bouquet, Curtsying

In his early scenes from the theatrical world, Degas depicted only that which the audience or musicians could see of the stage. However, later he went backstage, and he became a cool observer of rehearsals. In his paintings the stage changed from being an incidental setting of the picture to become the theme of the picture itself. Following his works showing the rehearsal room and the stage as a whole (even when only a corner is depicted), there came his series of astounding variations on the theme of dancers, in groups or isolated, in which the artist gained more and more freedom of vision, forever changing angles and capturing the ballerinas in the most surprising positions. The dancers are painted more and more in close-up. They do not move within a well-defined three-dimensional space, they fill the foreground with colours against the wings and curtains.

The most remarkable among these works are the different versions of Ballerina with a Bouquet, Curtsying. The dancer is a sylph, arms outstretched, and still carried by the last movement at the close of her solo. She bows, bathed in the brilliant spotlight, with the unreal, fantastic decor of the ballet as her background.