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by Tom Gurney Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on September 28, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Degas Four Dancers: Introduction
A raised arm crosses the upper left of Edgar Degas's Four Dancers. Below it, heads and shoulders press together. The nearest dancer turns partly away, her blue-violet bodice edged with red and pale green; another leans over her shoulder while a darker-haired face emerges at the right. The lower half becomes a mass of green skirts. This is the tall pastel Quatre danseuses, catalogued as MS1831, made circa 1900. Its closeness and overlapping bodies reward a slower look than its simple English title suggests. [1][8]
Several Degas works share the title Four Dancers. This article concerns a 64 × 42 cm pastel on paper in a private collection, also numbered Lemoisne IV-1417. It is different from the National Gallery of Art's wide oil painting of four dancers and a landscape. The composition establishes the work’s identity: a different four-dancer image would bring different dates, materials and ownership. [1][5]
The work at a glance
ArtistEdgar Degas (1834–1917)
Catalogue titleQuatre danseuses (Four Dancers)
DateCirca 1900, in Michel Schulman's catalogue
MediumPastel on paper
Size64 × 42 cm
LocationPrivate collection
CatalogueSchulman MS1831; Lemoisne IV-1417, p. 815
The sheet is about one and a half times as high as it is wide. Degas fits the raised arm, gathered heads, bent elbows, bodices and skirts into that slim format. The front figure dominates the lower centre. Her face turns down and left, so we see a shoulder, an exposed upper back and the arm bent in front of her. Just beyond her, another dancer's profile and dark reddish hair overlap the foreground head. The face at upper right nearly reaches the edge of the picture. The dancers are close enough that one person's outline repeatedly disappears into another's. [1]
Counting four bodies is harder than reading the title. Arms and shoulders cross and merge; a green skirt might seem to continue from one figure into the next. The title identifies the group, but the image makes the viewer work out its arrangement. That resistance is part of the composition's energy. A quick glance records a bright cluster. A second look traces where a forearm ends, where hair hides a face and which shoulder belongs to which figure. None of this requires a claim that Degas portrayed four named performers or that the figures occupied one documented backstage moment. [1]
The picture does not supply a detailed setting. No stage frame, mirrors, barre, audience or floor plan fixes a room. Yellow and green marks surround the upper bodies and fill the space behind the arm. That ground lets the coloured figures stand out while making it difficult to separate them completely from their surroundings. It may suggest the world of dance, but it cannot tell us which theatre or rehearsal the artist had in mind. [1][3]
The raised arm at upper left gives the group a direction. Its diagonal leads our eye toward the brighter head below, then down across the central shoulder to the front bodice. A second bend appears at the right, where an arm curls near another figure's shoulder. These angles animate an otherwise compact group. The dancers are not performing a visible leap or formal pose. They appear to be pausing, turning or adjusting themselves, though the picture does not identify the action of every hand. [1]
Colour and the pastel surface
The front bodice is built from bands and flecks of blue-violet, red and pale accents. Behind it, skin is warm ochre and pink. Yellow blooms in the upper background, while green runs down into the skirts. The colour does not merely fill an outline: it helps define the space. Warm heads separate from the cooler lower field, then merge again where strokes of yellow and green cross their edges. The palette gives the group a sense of movement even though their feet are outside the frame. [1]
Pastel is a dry material. Its marks can sit visibly on paper, and Degas used it extensively for later dancers. This particular catalogue record calls MS1831 pastel on paper; it does not give a technical account of every layer or a conservation analysis. The reproduced image shows short, broken-looking strokes and areas where colours build together. Those visible qualities are enough to discuss the surface without inventing a hidden sequence of media or a particular fixative. [1][3]
A reproduction also limits what we can judge. It can reveal the composition and broad relations among colours, but not the exact grain of the paper or all changes Degas made as he worked. Strong claims about individual pastel grains, underdrawing or the sheet's condition would require close examination or a conservation report. Looking through a reproduction remains valuable when we distinguish what the image shows from what the physical sheet might reveal. [1]
Gesture before performance
Degas returned repeatedly to dancers in rehearsal, waiting and preparation. The National Gallery of Art's survey notes how his dance subjects span different media and decades, and how related poses reappear. That wider pattern helps explain why a grouped pastel of turned shoulders and raised arms matters. It places the small actions around dance on a level with the formal steps an audience would see. Yet general context should not turn this private pastel into a record of a particular performance. [3][4]
Here, hands and arms organize our attention more than faces. The nearest dancer looks down, and the others are partly turned or obscured. We cannot treat them as portraits from which to recover their thoughts. What we can see is the physical relation among bodies: one arm lifts, another bends, one head leans across a shoulder, and several torsos occupy a space too narrow for a clear row. Degas gives their interval of apparent preparation the visual density of a principal action. [1]
Such imagery can be seductive, but its point of view also deserves thought. We stand very close to people who do not appear to address us. The picture offers the intimacy of a moment away from a finished public pose, while withholding most of the circumstances. Degas's compositional choice, rather than an accidental camera-like glimpse, creates that intimacy. It is safest to say the pastel presents a crowded group of dancers and that its gestures suggest preparation. It does not prove where the artist stood, whether the four appeared together in life or how they felt about being watched. [1][3]
Watch: Edgar Degas
Explore his paintings, drawings and sculpture in three short videos.
Degas, The Dance Class
Smarthistory
Look closely at Degas’s off-duty dancers and his unusual view into the rehearsal room.
Degas did not make just one group of four dancers. The National Gallery of Art owns an oil called Four Dancers, dated around 1899, in which four orange-bodiced figures stand beside a broad landscape. That picture is wider than it is high and measures 151.1 × 180.2 cm. MS1831 is a narrow 64 × 42 cm pastel. In the oil, open space beside the group is part of the design; in this pastel, overlap and compression carry the effect. The shared English title and nearby dates cannot turn two materially and visually distinct objects into one. [1][5]
The Guggenheim Museum owns another later group, Dancers in Green and Yellow, dated around 1903. Its record describes pastel and charcoal on three pieces of tracing paper mounted to board, at 98.8 × 71.5 cm. It also shows dancers gathered closely, but its arrangement, scale and support differ from MS1831. Comparing them helps us see a recurring compositional problem: how can a few nearly repeated forms make a new rhythm each time? The answer is not a single fixed formula. Degas changes the crop, colour and placement of arms and heads. [1][6]
A related drawing appeared as Sotheby's lot 144 in 2006. The auction essay describes it as a study for Lemoisne 1417, our pastel, and says its framing is narrower on the left. The drawing is approximately 60.3 × 28.2 cm, so its dimensions and sale history belong to that separate sheet. Sotheby's refers to the related pastel as circa 1902. Schulman's present catalogue dates MS1831 circa 1900. These are approximate scholarly datings for closely related late works, not evidence that either object suddenly became a different medium or acquired the other's provenance. [1][2]
The existence of a related drawing makes the composition look less like a chance snapshot and more like an arrangement Degas could reconsider. The 2006 catalogue calls that sheet a study, though a study need not record an exact sequence of every stroke in the final pastel. We can say that the works belong to a family of similar figures and cropping decisions. We cannot reconstruct the entire order of production from one auction description. [1][2]
Date, provenance and exhibition history
The catalogue's circa 1900 date locates the pastel near the turn of the century without assigning an exact day or year. A review published during the 1996 Chicago exhibition captioned a Four Dancers pastel of the same 64 × 42 cm dimensions as circa 1899–1904. That broader span illustrates how estimates for Degas's late works can vary. For this page, the current Schulman catalogue gives the controlling lead date; the earlier exhibition-era caption is a useful reminder that it is approximate. [1][7]
Schulman traces MS1831 from Degas's studio to the first estate sale in 1918, where it appeared as lot 177. The catalogue then lists Alphonse Kann in Paris, Percy Moore Turner in London, Royan Middleton in Aberdeen, Lefevre Gallery in London, and Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbish in New York. It records Sotheby's New York sales on 11 May 1977, lot 16, and 11 November 1999, lot 113, followed by a private collection. This is a documented chain in the catalogue, not a claim that every interval of ownership or the current owner's identity is public. [1]
The catalogue also lists London exhibitions at Lefevre Gallery in 1970, a Tokyo showing in 1971, and Degas: Beyond Impressionism in London and Chicago in 1996–97, where the pastel was catalogue number 28. These historical displays show the object has been publicly studied and exhibited. They do not mean it is on display today. Its recorded present location remains a private collection. [1]
A Degas estate sale stamp is recorded at lower left. Such a mark relates the sheet to the dispersal of works after the artist's death; it is not the same as a hand-written signature made during his life. The distinction is useful because the catalogue's provenance begins with the studio and sale. The small reproduction makes the stamp difficult to evaluate independently, so this page follows the object record rather than claiming to authenticate it from the web image. [1]
How a shared title can mislead a reader
Four Dancers sounds precise, yet it tells us very little about an individual artwork. Degas used dancers as a recurring subject, and later cataloguers have had to distinguish sheets and canvases with similar translated names. The French title Quatre danseuses is likewise a description, not a unique identifier on its own. The catalogue number MS1831, the older Lemoisne number 1417, the 64 × 42 cm dimensions and the recognisable vertical arrangement together establish this page's subject. A reader who searches only for “Degas Four Dancers” will encounter images that cannot all be attached to the same provenance. [1][5][6]
This is especially important when a reproduction is detached from its physical facts. A picture of the group does not, by itself, tell us whether the original was oil or pastel, when it was made, or where it went after Degas. The catalogue connects the composition to measurements, material, mark and recorded history. Image and object record answer different questions. Bringing them together allows a reader to see the dancers and understand which specific sheet is being discussed. [1]
The distinction also changes how we describe the work's scale. At 64 cm tall, this sheet was much smaller than the NGA oil canvas and somewhat smaller than the Guggenheim's later four-dancer pastel. Enlarged on a screen, all three may seem to occupy the same display area. Their actual measurements restore the differing physical encounters: a relatively compact vertical sheet, a large horizontal canvas with open landscape, and a larger constructed paper support. The physical facts make the tightness of MS1831's crop more striking. Its figures are not only crowded in a thumbnail; they are arranged within a narrow piece of paper. [1][5][6]
A title can encourage viewers to count figures and stop there. In this work, counting is only the start. Degas lets the shapes move between separateness and continuity: the orange and brown hair marks help us locate heads, while the broad green lower zone weakens the borders between skirts. The lifted arm draws attention upward, but the bent arm and front bodice pull it back down. That circulation keeps the eye moving within the narrow field. Whether one reads the group as waiting or dressing, the image is specific about pose and colour and open about narrative. [1]
The catalogue's private-collection location imposes a practical limit too. It gives no public gallery where a reader can go to see MS1831 today. The previous exhibitions and sales make it possible to trace the work through published records, but they do not give permission to assume that it remains in any former owner's hands or that it is available for viewing. The documented history and the visible image can be discussed while its present location and accessibility remain unknown. [1]
Looking again
Begin with the arm that leaves the upper left edge. Follow its diagonal back through the reddish head and across the overlapping shoulders. Then look at the front bodice: its blue-violet and red strokes make it distinct from the green skirts but do not isolate its wearer from the group. Finally, try to identify each dancer without forcing every line into a neat outline. The sheet's narrow proportions keep the figures together even as their gestures pull in different directions. [1]
That tension is the work's central experience. Its title offers a count; the pastel offers a crowded network of movements. The catalogue fixes the object as MS1831, circa 1900, pastel on paper in a private collection. Within those facts, the image remains open to looking: Degas makes the moments around dancing visually as compelling as a step on stage. [1][3]
Artworks directory
A selected index of documented works, combining owner records with entries sampled across Michel Schulman’s digital catalogue raisonné. It is not a complete catalogue. View the full catalogue
Where do one dancer’s shoulders disappear behind another?
Context
How does the tall format change the way you follow the raised arm?
Open Question
Which features distinguish this pastel from the NGA oil of the same title?
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References
Michel Schulman, Degas digital catalogue raisonné, Quatre danseuses, MS1831, image, date, medium, dimensions, mark, provenance and exhibitions. View source
Sotheby's, Quatre danseuses related drawing, lot 144, 2006, separate study and comparison with Lemoisne 1417. View source
National Gallery of Art, “Degas's Dancers”, scholarly discussion of recurring dance subjects and working methods. View source
National Gallery of Art, Degas: The Dancers, 1984 catalogue overview of the artist's dance subjects and relations among drawings, paintings, pastels and sculpture. View source
National Gallery of Art, Four Dancers, 1963.10.122, separate circa 1899 oil on canvas. View source
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Dancers in Green and Yellow, 78.2514.12, separate circa 1903 pastel and charcoal. View source
The Observer, University of Notre Dame, 15 November 1996, p. 5, contemporary exhibition review reproducing the 64 × 42 cm pastel and a broader circa 1899–1904 date. View source
Splash image: Edgar Degas, Four Dancers, circa 1900, pastel on paper. Private collection, MS1831 (Schulman catalogue number). Catalogue record. View source
Tom Gurney is an art history expert. He received a BSc (Hons) degree from Salford University, UK, and has also studied famous artists and art movements for over 20 years.
Tom has also published a number of books related to art history and continues to contribute to a number of different art websites. You can read more on Tom Gurney here.
by Tom Gurney
