Dancers in the Wings offers an oblique perspective preferred by Degas. As a special class of subscriber to the Paris Opéra known as an abonné, he held a backstage pass that gave access to the wings as well as the rehearsal halls. In this emphatically ambiguous composition, a group of partially obscured ballerinas emerges from among organic fragments of stage scenery. Two mysterious haloes appear in the distance like a pair of enormous eye sockets returning the artist's gaze.