Waiting (L’Attente)

A young dancer in a translucent orange tutu sits slumped and bowed with exhaustion while her chaperone, in black, leans back behind her, equally drained; the rehearsal room itself seems to sag. Degas built the pastel from dense, overlapping strokes of hot orange, acid green and black — an image of waiting and fatigue rather than performance. The pastel is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.