Degas depicts a scene from the third act of Meyerbeer's opera Robert le Diable. The ghosts of dead nuns have been resurrected and greet one another amid the ruins of a moonlit monastery. Although dated 1872, this canvas was painted in 1871. In 1876, Degas painted a larger variant (Victoria and Albert Museum, London) expressly for Jean-Baptiste Faure, who starred in the opera.

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