Edgar Degas, At the Dressmaker's, 1882, right side probably reworked by Degas in the 1890s, pastel on board. Private collection

Artist and close friend Pierre-Georges Jeanniot recalled of Degas, “He had his studio on the Rue Victor-Massé….I often found him with his hands covered in thick pastel dust.”  Degas employed pastel in the majority of his works—whether used alone or in combination with other media, applied dry, or crushed and mixed with water or a binder into a paste. Degas frequently manipulated and experimented with pastel, paying close attention to the interactions between the pastel and the paper support on which it rested. A young artist even reported seeing Degas place a pastel drawing on the floor of his studio and stomp on it to make the delicate powder adhere more firmly to the paper. Degas’s engagement with pastel provided a critical impetus for a wider revival of the medium among French artists of the late nineteenth century.