Description
Seated Dancer Adjusting Her Shoes shows a single dancer seated and bent low over her right foot to tie the ribbon. The skirt spreads as a pale plane across the left half of the canvas, a blue bow sits at her waist, and the signature stands in the upper right. As a canvas painting this is a rehearsal scene, not a performance. We make it as a hand-painted oil on linen, in eight sizes or to your own measurements, and you receive a photograph of the finished work for approval before dispatch.
| Title: | Seated Dancer Adjusting Her Shoes |
| Other titles: | Seated Dancer · Danseuse assise |
| Painter: | Edgar Degas |
| Our reproduction: | hand-painted oil on linen canvas, 8 sizes from 30 x 35 cm to 100 x 110 cm, custom sizes on request |
Seated Dancer Adjusting Her Shoes – Edgar Degas
Who is shown?
A single dancer, unnamed. Who she was is not recorded: Degas drew in rehearsal rooms for decades and almost never named his models, so we give no name. What is certain is the task – she sits on a bench or on the floor and adjusts the ribbon of her shoe, in a moment nobody on the stage side ever sees.
What is on the canvas?
The figure is seen from her left and bent deeply forward. The head is lowered almost to the knee, the face in profile looking down, the reddish hair gathered high into a heavy knot. The left arm runs along the thigh, the right hand reaches the foot and touches the ribbon of the pale pink shoe. The other foot rests flat on the floor. The skirt is wide and pale, between white and rose, and pours across the left half of the scene as a large, almost independent plane; at the waist sits a blue bow, the only cool and saturated colour in the whole work. Back and shoulders are bare, and the bodice has a ruffled pale edge. The floor is a warm red-brown, the wall behind a green-grey wash with pink strokes woven through it, without an edge and without objects. In the upper right, in dark strokes, stands the signature.
Why does this particular posture matter?
Because nobody dances it. A performance is upright; this moment is curved: the spine bends, the shoulder drops forward, the nape is left exposed. Degas sought such postures deliberately, because they say more about a body than a pose does – they show what the work does to it. A ribbon on a shoe is an everyday errand, and that is exactly why the scene is not sentimental. If the dancer looked out at us this would be a work about beauty; because she looks into her own shoe, it is a work about labour.
The colour is laid in dry, hatched strokes that do not merge into a smooth plane. The skirt is built from short parallel pulls with the ground left visible between them, and it is that openness which gives it the weight of cloth. The wall behind the figure is only a thinned mist of colour without a single sharp edge, so the eye has nowhere to go but the bent back. The blue bow at the waist is the one point that stops the gaze – small, saturated, and placed exactly at the centre of the composition.
What does the scene mean?
It means concentration without an audience. The dancer is neither exhausted nor on display; she is dealing with something small and necessary, and that is what gives her dignity. As an impressionist painting the scene is unusual in having no light from outside: impressionism usually means sun, but here everything glows out of the colour of the skirt itself. The work hangs well where you want a quiet figure rather than a scene, and it holds a small wall too, because all of the content sits in one figure. It is the kind of wall art that rewards a second look rather than demanding the first.
What we deliberately do not state here: the year, the technique of the original, the name of the collection and the accession number. The title Seated Dancer recurs across several Degas works in a very similar posture, so which of them is the original of this particular version has not been established. We do not copy such details second-hand; we say what is visible on the canvas.
The motif among Degas’s works
The seated dancer adjusting a shoe is a recurring posture in Degas, not a single scene. Closest to it in our range are Two Dancers, where the same bent pose is given company, The Dance Class, where the same errand is set inside a full room, and Four Dancers, where the group spreads across a wide canvas. If you want a scene with several figures, look there; here everything rests on one.
How is our hand-painted version made?
It is made with a brush and oil colours, not a printer. The painter works from a high-resolution reference and builds the skirt the way the original builds it: in short, separated strokes that do not blur into an even plane, while the blue bow stays clean and saturated. Every reproduction is made afresh and no two copies are quite the same, because a hand does not repeat the same stroke twice; every hand-painted copy is therefore its own. This family has no photographs of our finished canvases, because the work has not been painted since we began photographing every piece – so we show and describe none here. The photograph of your canvas reaches you before dispatch.
Which size for which wall?
If you do not know which: 70 x 80 cm. The format is upright and the figure takes almost the full height, so the work carries a narrow wall where a wide scene would lose its edges. The 30 x 35 and 43 x 47 cm sizes are for a shelf, a hallway or a group of smaller works; 50 x 55 and 60 x 70 cm go above a chest of drawers or into a bedroom; 70 x 80, 80 x 90 and 90 x 100 cm go above a sofa or a bed and are the size most people choose; 100 x 110 cm is the largest, for a high room where a large painting finally has air around it. Measure your chosen size on the wall with a paper cut-out first. None of the sizes is held in stock as a finished item – every copy is made to order, and each stays a single piece.
Custom size, stretcher bar and frame
If none of the eight sizes suits your wall, we paint to your measurements and keep the proportions of the scene so the figure does not lose her skirt; that is our painting made to order. Every copy is delivered stretched on a wooden bar, ready to hang. For the frame, use our 3D application: on this motif it shows every moulding profile we carry, so you can compare gold, silver, black, white and natural wood – it is for choosing a frame and nothing else. If you want to see how the work looks on your own wall, that is our separate room-placement service.
Delivery and guarantee
Every copy is made to order in our studio in Slovenia, so allow 15 to 45 days depending on the size you choose. We send it stretched and protected for transport, framed if you chose a frame, anywhere in the European Union without customs duties; for destinations outside the EU, write to us before you order. You receive a photograph of the finished work for approval before dispatch, and our returns policy applies to every order. The whole range is in the Edgar Degas gallery, and the painter’s life is described in our article about Edgar Degas.
Frequently asked questions
What is the dancer doing?
Tying the ribbon of her shoe. She is seated, bent deeply forward, her right hand reaching the foot.
Why is there no year or museum?
Because this posture recurs across several Degas works and which one is the original of this version has not been established. We do not guess.
Is this a print?
No. It is painted by hand in oil on canvas; the brushstrokes are visible and can be felt.
Which size should I choose?
For a living room usually 70 x 80 cm, for a smaller wall 50 x 55 cm. The size guide is above.
Can I have a size that is not listed?
Yes, we paint to measure and keep the proportions of the scene while doing it.
How is it delivered?
Stretched on the bar, and framed if you chose that, in 15 to 45 days after you approve the photograph.
Is it suitable as a gift?
Yes, especially for someone who dances or used to. Because every copy is made to order, allow for the making time; if you would rather leave the choice to them, there is our gift voucher.
- Subject: a seated dancer bent low over her shoe, a wide pale skirt and a blue bow at the waist
- Original: Edgar Degas; year, technique, collection and accession are not given, because the work is not uniquely identified
- Ours: hand-painted in oil on linen, eight sizes from 30 x 35 to 100 x 110 cm, stretched and framed on request
- Worth knowing: the blue bow is the only saturated colour in the work – cover it and the scene goes almost monochrome
