When Degas painted this work, he had already begun another version (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) that he intended for the 1874 Impressionist exhibition, but it was not shown. Once the present picture was completed and delivered to the collector Jean-Baptiste Faure, Degas returned to the first version and substantially revised it. Faure lent the present painting, Degas' most ambitious picture on a dance theme, to the 1876 Impressionist exhibition. Some twenty-one dancers and four of their mothers wait their turn to be evaluated by the ballet master Jules Perrot. Degas, who had never witnessed such an examination, prepared for the picture with countless drawings executed in his studio while dancers posed for him. Mary Cassatt often claimed that, in this painting, Degas surpassed Vermeer.

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