The Lost Dancer
From exploitation to enduring legacy
The Young Dancer
Marie Genevieve van Goethem was born in Paris in 1865 to Belgian parents who had fled to France in a desperate but ultimately futile attempt to escape poverty. By her early teens, Marie's father had vanished—"either dead or returned to Belgium"—and her laundress mother reportedly indentured all three daughters to the Paris Opera Ballet as "petit rats," a term for young ballet trainees.
Paris at this time was undergoing rapid industrialization and cultural transformation. While homelessness and poverty skyrocketed among the working class, ballet was a fragile lifeline for those seeking to escape destitution, ironically serving an art form created for and consumed by the upper class whose privilege Marie could never hope to attain.
Le Petit Rats
Marie's daily existence was reportedly grueling, evoking scenes from Les Misérables rather than the enriching experience we associate with ballet today. She allegedly worked 10-12 hours daily, six to seven days weekly under harsh conditions. Chronically malnourished and dressed in hand-me-downs, these young dancers endured militaristic training and brutal examinations. Even the romantic tutus (named from the French children's word cucu, meaning "bottom") were made of muslin, gauze, and the newly-invented tulle which glowed beautifully under gas lighting but proved tragically flammable. Several ballerinas, including the famed Emma Livry, died when their costumes caught fire.
Marie and her older sister supplemented their meager income by modeling for artists and—allegedly—through the patronage of male "sponsors”—the abonnés.
The Abonnés
The Paris Opera Ballet functioned within a deeply exploitative structure where wealthy male subscribers—"abonnés”—held tremendous influence over dancers' careers. These patrons received special privileges, including access to the exclusive foyer de la danse where they could interact with dancers before and during performances. For impoverished dancers, becoming a wealthy patron's mistress often represented their only path to financial stability. The abonnés would control casting decisions, determine career advancement, and "sponsor" a girl's training in exchange for sexual favors—a practice so commonplace it became a literary trope, with an 1859 writer for Le Figaro noting: "There is not one Parisian novel which does not introduce a banker or man of fashion who keeps a ballet girl of the Opera."
Despite the obvious power imbalance, society typically judged the teenage dancers rather than the men exploiting them. Dancers carried the moral burden of relationships they had minimal power to refuse.
The "Animals"
Degas had a complex Relationship with his subjects. Though reportedly celibate, a curious mystery surrounds his personal life. In a letter to Giovanni Boldini before their trip to Spain, Degas recommended a "discreet purveyor of condoms," suggesting awareness of sexual risks. A model claimed he had confessed to contracting venereal disease—a common affliction among men who frequented brothels in that era—perhaps explaining his later abstinence.
Despite his alleged misogyny—once admitting, "I have perhaps too often considered woman as an animal"—Degas was relentlessly devoted to capturing women without artifice. "Women can never forgive me," he told painter Georges Jeanniot, "they hate me, they can feel that I am disarming them. I show them without their coquetry, in the state of animals cleaning themselves." Some art historians, including Hollis Clayson in her work "Painted Love" (1991), argue that Degas deliberately undermined male viewers' erotic expectations in his art, portraying prostitution as a purely economic transaction rather than a seductive encounter.
This unsentimental treatment of models, particularly dancers, revealed a fascination with physical strain. Rather than portraying the glamorous ballet performances, he insisted on capturing his "little monkey girls" under stress—at the barre, muscles aching, feet bleeding. His obsessive attention to the dancers' movements, postures, and everyday routines helped revolutionize the portrayal of ballet in art, moving beyond idealized performances to capture the harrowing reality of a dancer's life. During the 1870s and 1880s, this dedication resulted in hundreds of drawings and paintings, often sketched in rehearsal studios.
The Little Dancer
Degas' Petite danseuse de quatorze ans (“Little Dancer Aged Fourteen”) shocked the art world when first exhibited. Unlike idealized marble sculptures of noble figures and goddesses, Degas depicted the impoverished Marie in confident repose. Crafted from pigmented beeswax for skin, real human hair for her wig, cotton bodice, linen ballet slippers, and a tarlatan tutu—the public was scandalized by both the subject matter and materials, prompting Degas to remove it from display. It remained hidden for nearly forty years.
After Degas' death in 1917, his heirs commissioned bronze reproductions of his sculptures. The Paris foundry A.A. Hébrard meticulously preserved every detail and imperfection—including the crack in the dancer's left arm. At The Metropolitan Museum, curators have replaced the fabric skirt multiple times, with Costume Institute conservator Glenn Petersen most recently designing and airbrushing a new tutu in 2018.
Forever Marie
Today, Marie van Goethem's legacy transcends her exploitation. Though she vanished from historical record, she remains immortalized in her "confident repose"—a fourteen-year-old dancer emanating remarkable presence. Her story reminds us that behind great art often stand overlooked individuals whose struggles and humanity deserve recognition. Contemporary ballerinas honor Marie and countless young women like her by reclaiming their narrative—transforming what was once exploitation into a celebration of resilience, talent, and the enduring human spirit.