Degas exhibited the original version of this sculpture at the sixth Impressionist exhibition, in 1881. The wax figure, tinted to simulate flesh, was clothed in a real bodice, tutu, and ballet slippers and topped by a horsehair wig tied with a silk ribbon. The care with which Degas observed his model, a ballet student in the Paris Opéra named Marie van Goethem, is reflected in the extraordinary number of surviving sketches in charcoal and pastel as well as in the preparatory sculptural study of the figure in the nude.
