Her weight is on her left leg while she extends and turns out her right foot, stretches back her arms, and tips up her chin. The sculpture is a study for the larger piece, Little Dancer of Fourteen Years (about 1881), which shows a figure in the same position depicted, but wearing a real tutu. The model was a young pupil at the École de Danse in Paris, Marie van Goethem. Using real clothing in a sculpture was a radical approach to the sculptural media, and one that only caught on in the 1910s with the Cubists. The sculpture met with a mixed reception when it was shown at the sixth Impressionist exhibition in 1881. Some critics were shocked by what they saw as a depraved, distorted figure who lacked the grace they expected to find in depictions of women. This realism is what appeals to modern viewers.
Kristoffer Arvidsson from The Collection Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenburg 2014
