Room Paintings Famous paintings, matched to your room.
In a dance studio, two ballerinas wearing knee-length tutus and ballet slippers sit on a bench and stretch to our right while four more pose at the back of the space, to our left, in this long, horizontal painting.

Before the Ballet

Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917)

Date
1890/1892
Medium
oil on canvas
Size
15¾ × 35 in (40 × 88.9 cm)
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, accession 1942.9.19. See the museum’s record
Credit
Widener Collection

Public domain image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art (Open Access, CC0).

Palette

Closest wall colors:

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Hang it

Pick the furniture and a print size to see it to scale on your wall.

Print
20 × 44½ in, the whole painting on 20 × 60 in paper
Center
53¼ in (135 cm) from the floor
Above the sofa
8 in (20 cm) from the sofa to the frame
Ideal width
56 to 63 in over an 84 in sofa
Why this height
Centered at eye level, this frame would not sit 6 to 10 in above the sofa, so the 8 in gap sets the height.
Before the Ballet: a 20 × 44½ in print hung above a sofa, drawn to scale on a 12 × 8 ft wall
20 × 44½ in panoramic print (51 × 113 cm), centered 53¼ in from the floor, 8 in above the sofa. Drawn to scale on a 12 × 8 ft wall.

Try it on your wall color

Default greige

Print it

No standard paper matches this painting’s proportions closely, so print it whole with a white border, or trim the edges to fill the paper.

Paper Filling the paper Printed whole Frame Frame with a 2 in mat Frame with a 3 in mat Sharpness
5 × 7 in trims 37 % 3 × 7 in 5 × 7 in ready-made 9 × 11 in custom 11 × 13 in custom 2619 dpi, crisp up close
12 × 16 in trims 40 % 7¼ × 16 in 12 × 16 in ready-made 16 × 20 in ready-made 18 × 22 in custom 1127 dpi, crisp up close
12 × 36 in trims 25.9 % 12 × 26¾ in 12 × 36 in custom 16 × 40 in custom 18 × 42 in custom 676 dpi, crisp up close
20 × 30 in trims 32.5 % 13½ × 30 in 20 × 30 in ready-made 24 × 34 in custom 26 × 36 in custom 601 dpi, crisp up close
24 × 36 in trims 32.5 % 16¼ × 36 in 24 × 36 in ready-made 28 × 40 in custom 30 × 42 in custom 501 dpi, crisp up close
20 × 60 in trims 25.9 % 20 × 44½ in 20 × 60 in custom 24 × 64 in custom 26 × 66 in custom 406 dpi, crisp up close

Sharpness is worked out from the largest file the museum offers. Above 300 dpi a print holds up at arm’s length; 150 dpi is plenty for a picture seen from across a sofa.

Download

Free for any use, including commercial: this image is public domain (CC0).

Public domain image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art (Open Access, CC0). You may print, share, change and sell it without asking. Read what that means on our image license page, and how to get a good result in how to print a public-domain painting.

More like this

By Edgar Degas, or in the same style or subject.

All works by Edgar Degas