The Star
1879/81
Medium
Pastel on cream wove paper, edge mounted on board
Dimensions
73.3 × 57.4 cm (28 7/8 × 22 5/8 in.)
Classification
pastel
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
60656
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The prima ballerina shown in Edgar Degas’s pastel has been identified as the Spanish dancer Rosita Mauri, who moved from Catalonia to Paris and gained fame at the Paris Opéra in the late 1870s.
About the Artist
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas · 1834–1917
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas, born on July 19, 1834, in Paris to a prosperous banking family, was the eldest of five children. His mother, Célestine Musson, a Creole from New Orleans whose father Germain Musson had roots in Haiti, died when Degas was thirteen, leaving his father Augustin and unmarried uncles to guide him. Educated at the elite Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he earned a baccalauréat in...