Dancer tying her shoe

When one sees ballet dancers, one immediately thinks of Degas. In the 1890s Edward Martyns purchased Edgar Degas's Two Dancers in the Dressing Room, c. 1880 (bequeathed National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin in 1924). Given Martyns's association with George Moore and the Irish Literary Scene, Orpen may have known of the work. Although it does not actually have a dancer adjusting her shoe, it might still have inspired Orpen in some aspects of the pose. Around 1900 there are a number of sketches in his sketchbooks featuring dancers viewed from the wings. In one of these sketchbooks Orpen also did a drawing of a Seated Girl with a remarkably similar pose. (See Pyms Gallery, 1981, William Orpen 1878-1931: Early Work, no. 92.)

O.R.P.