Which Impressionist painted 'The Dance Class'?

Edgar Degas painted The Dance Class, one of the best-known Impressionist-era studies of ballet rehearsal.

The title can refer to more than one Degas work, including the 1874 painting now held by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the closely related The Ballet Class at the Musée d’Orsay. Both show Degas’s sustained interest in dancers, teachers, rehearsal rooms, and the discipline behind theatrical performance.

Degas was fascinated by movement and modern viewpoints. Instead of presenting ballet as a glamorous stage spectacle, he often showed dancers stretching, waiting, adjusting costumes, or receiving corrections. In the Metropolitan Museum version, the imaginary class is supervised by ballet master Jules Perrot and is set in the old Paris Opera, which had burned the previous year.

A common mix-up is confusing The Dance Class with The Dancing Class or The Dance Lesson, also by Degas. The similar titles reflect his repeated exploration of ballet rather than different artists. Mary Cassatt, Monet, and Renoir were major Impressionists, but Degas is the canonical answer for this painting and for the wider ballet series.