The Star (L'Étoile)

Edgar Degas

Pastel on cream wove paper, edge mounted on board

Musée d'Orsay

The Star (L'Étoile) depicts a lone prima ballerina at the apex of her performance on the stage of the Paris Opéra, rendered in Degas's characteristic pastel on cream wove paper. The dancer, identified in scholarly literature as the Spanish-born Catalan ballerina Rosita Mauri, is shown in an arabesque pose bathed in stage light, her white tutu luminous against a loosely suggested backdrop, while a partially obscured male figure lingers in the wings. Degas, a leading figure among the French Impressionists, was renowned for his sustained, penetrating study of the world of dance, capturing not only its outward grace but also the social realities that framed it. This work is a prime example of his mastery of pastel as a medium for conveying movement, ephemeral light, and the charged atmosphere of the modern urban stage.