The artist’s studio, Paris
First studio sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 6-8 May 1918, lot 9
[Ambroise Vollard, Paris, by 1933] [1]
[Galerie Mouradian Vallotton, Paris, by 1938 until ca. 1946-1949 ] [2] [3]
[Galerie André Weil, Paris, by 1952]
Sold to the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1952
Administrative transfer to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1972

New York, Knoedler Galleries, November-December 1933. “Paintings from the Ambroise Vollard Collection,” no. 17 (as “Le Jouer de hautbois”). 

Paris, Galerie Mouradian-Vallotton, 1938. “Degas,” no. 11

San Antonio, TX, Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute, 1956.

Houston, TX, Contemporary Arts Museum,  March 2–April 2, 1956. “Shadow & Substance,” no cat. no. 

Los Angeles County Museum, March 1958. “An Exhibition of Works by Edgar Hilaire Germain Degas,” no. 15. 

New York, Wildenstein Gallery, April 7–May 7, 1960. “Degas” [Loan exhibition for the benefit of The Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York, Inc.],  no. 16.

New Orleans, Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, May 2–June 16, 1965. “Edgar Degas: His Family and Friends in New Orleans,” no cat. no.  

Denver Art Museum, December 26, 1978–February 18, 1979; New York, Wildenstein Institute, March 14–April 27, 1979; Minneapolis Institute of Art, May 24–July 1, 1979. “Masterpieces of French Art from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,”  no. 11. 

Tokyo, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, April 10–June 14, 1992; Fukuoka Art Museum, July 1–26, 1992; Osaka Municipal Museum, August 8–13, 1992; Yokohama, Sogo Museum of Art, September 23–October 25, 1992. “European Masters from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,” no. 59. 

Canberra, Australia National Gallery, November 14, 1992–January 31, 1993; Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria,  February 19–May 10, 1993; Auckland City Art Gallery, June 5–August 29, 1993. “Rembrandt to Renoir: European Masterpieces from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,” no. 59.  

New Orleans Museum of Art, May 1–August 29, 1999. “Degas and New Orleans,” no. 14. 

Copenhagen, Ordrupgaard, September 16–November 28, 1999. “Degas et La Nouvelle-Orléans,” no. 15. 

Glen Falls, NY, The Hyde Collection Art Museum, July 12–October 18, 2009. “Degas and Music,” no. 10. 

Paris, Musée d'Orsay, September 24, 2019–January 19, 2020; Washington DC, National Gallery of Art, March 1, 2020–October 12, 2020. “Degas at the Opera,” no. 91.

Galerie Georges Petit, Vente atelier Edgar Degas I, Auction catalogue, Paris: Galerie Georges Petit, May 6-8, 1918, pg. 8, lot 9, repr. 

Jamot, Paul, Degas, Paris: Éd. de la Gazette des Beaux-arts, 1924, pg. 137. 

Lemoisne, Paul-André, Degas et son oeuvre, Paris: Arts et métiers graphiques, 1946, no. 187, repr. 

Howe Jr., Thomas C., “Recent Acquisitions,” Bulletin of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor 10, no. 12 (April 1953), fig. 9, unpaginated. 

Boggs, Jean, “Degas: the eye is discipline,” Art News 59, no. 2 (April 1960), pg. 36, fig. 2. 

California Palace of the Legion of Honor Bulletin 2, no. 1 (July/August, 1968), pg. 86.

Russoli, Franco, and Fiorella Minervino, L’opera completa di Degas, Milan: Rizzoli, 1970, no. 287, repr.  

Lassaigne, Jaques, and Fiorella Minervino, Tout l’oeuvre peint de Degas, Paris: Flammarion, 1974, no. 287, repr.

Distel, Anne, ed., Centenaire de l’Impressionnisme, exh. cat., Paris: Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1974, pg. 82, under no. 12, entry by Anne Dayez. 

Boggs, Jean Sutherland, ed., Degas, exh. cat., Paris: Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1988, pg. 161, fig. 88, under no. 97, entry by Henri Loyrette. 

Boggs, Jean Sutherland, ed., Degas, exh. cat., New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1988, pg. 162, fig. 88, under entry for no. 97 written by Henri Loyrette. 

Nash, Steven A., Lynn Federle Orr, and Marion Stewart, eds., European Masterpieces from The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, exh. cat., Tokyo: Tokyo Metropolitan Museum, 1992, pg. 248, no. 59, repr., entry by Steven A. Nash. 

Nash, Steven A., Lynn Federle Orr, and Marion Stewart, eds., Rembrandt to Renoir: European Masterpieces from The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, exh. cat., Canberra: Australian National Gallery, 1992, pg. 152, no. 59, repr., entry by Steven A. Nash.  

Feigenbaum, Gail, ed., Degas and New Orleans, exh. cat., New Orleans: New Orleans Museum of Art, 1999, pgs. 158, repr., 159, no. 14, entry by Jean Sutherland Boggs. 

Boggs, Jean Sutherland, and Marilyn R. Brown, Degas et La Nouvelle-Orléans, exh. cat., trans. Dennis Collins, Copenhagen: Ordrupgaard, 1999, repr. pg. 83, no. 15.

Kendall, Richard, “New Orleans and Copenhagen: Degas,” The Burlington Magazine, vol. 141, no. 1157 (August 1999), pg. 511. 

Nash, Steve, Lynn F. Orr, Marion C. Stewart, Masterworks of European Painting in the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1999, pg. 128, repr., entry by Steven A. Nash.  

DeVonyar, Jill, and Richard Kendall, Degas & Music, exh. cat., Glen Falls, NY: The Hyde Collection, 2009, pg. 65, fig. 20, cat. no. 10.  

Alsdorf, Bridget, “La fraternité des individus: les portraits de groupe de Degas,” La revue du Musee d’Orsay, no. 30 (Autumn 2010), pg. 21, fig. 4.

Alsdorf, Bridget, Fellow Men: Fantin-Latour and the Problem of the Group in Nineteenth-Century French Painting, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, pgs. 65, 66, repr. 

Keyes, Mindy,  “Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and Desire Dihau: Portraits of a Bassoonist and his Bassoon,” The Double Reed 38, no. 2 (2015), pgs. 89, 95, repr. [originally published in The Double Reed 13, no. 2 (1990)]. 

Loyette, Henri, “The Music Circle” in Degas at the Opera, exh. cat., ed. Henri Loyrette, New York: Thames & Hudson, 2020, no. 91, repr., unpaginated.