Edgar Degas
Degas's only showing of sculpture during his life took place in 1881 when he exhibited "The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years". A nearly life-size wax figure with real hair and dressed in a cloth tutu, it provoked a strong reaction from critics, most of whom found its realism extraordinary but denounced the dancer as ugly. In a review, J.-K. Huysmans wrote: "The terrible reality of this statuette evidently produces uneasiness in the spectators; all their notions about sculpture, about those cold inanimate whitenesses ... are here overturned. The fact is that with his first attempt Monsieur Degas has revolutionized the traditions of sculpture as he has long since shaken the conventions of painting."
Désiré Dihau
He is best known for being the bassoonist of the Paris Opera, where he played from July 1, 1862 to December 31, 1889, immortalized by Edgar Degas in the 1870 painting, ', preceded by a sketch kept at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Degas also depicted him in other paintings in which were present the musicians of the Salle Le Peletier, ' in 1872 and both versions, of 1871 and 1876, of the ballet of "Robert le Diable". Degas probably met Dihau at the Mère Lefebvre, in Montmartre where artists and musicians gathered. It is Dihau who introduced Degas to the opera where the painter found his strongest inspiration in the spectacle of the dancers he so often painted.