Edgar Degas
Degas's work was controversial, but was generally admired for its draftsmanship. His "La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans", or "Little Dancer of Fourteen Years", which he displayed at the sixth Impressionist exhibition in 1881, was probably his most controversial piece; some critics decried what they thought its "appalling ugliness" while others saw in it a "blossoming". In part Degas' originality consisted in disregarding the smooth, full surfaces and contours of classical sculpture ... [and] in garnishing his little statue with real hair and clothing made to scale like the accoutrements for a doll. These relatively "real" additions heightened the illusion, but they also posed searching questions, such as what can be referred to as "real" when art is concerned. The suite of pastels depicting nudes that Degas exhibited in the eighth Impressionist Exhibition in 1886 produced "the most concentrated body of critical writing on the artist during his lifetime ... The overall reaction was positive and laudatory".
Louis Mérante
Edgar Degas included the figure of Mérante, in an immaculate white suit, with the traditional baton for beating time on the floorboards, in his 1872 painting "Le foyer de danse". The painting marked the beginning of Dégas' long infatuation with the ballet, but though he had sketched the individual dancers, and the practice room in the company's old premises in the Salle Le Peletier, with its great arched mirror, he was not permitted to attend a rehearsal in person.
Wife (in 1861): the Russian ballerina (Mlle Zina, étoile in 1857-1863), which father Joseph Richard was the French ballet dancer and arrived to Russia in 1823 with his niece (or sister) and her husband Fernando Sor.