Achille Gouffé, Double Bass Player at the Paris Opéra

Inspired by Japanese prints, Degas placed the cropped figure of the bass player Gouffé--seen from behind--in the extreme foreground of the painting The Orchestra of the Opera (Musée d'Orsay, Paris). The viewer is situated in the audience directly behind the orchestra pit, with a view past Gouffé to the footlit stage. This drawing is from a sketchbook that contained two other drawings for the same composition, although X-radiographs of the painting reveal that the figure of Gouffé was added only at a late stage in the work's elaboration. -- Exhibition Label, from "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection"