92 EDGAR DEGAS Like no. 91, this drawing is from an album of pencil sketches made by Degas around French, 1834-1917 1877, during weekly soirees at the household of his friend Ludovic Halevy, a writer Reyer with Washerwomen of opera librettos (including Bizet's Carmen) and popular romances, as well as a keen Graphite follower of ballet, like Degas himself. According to Halevy, at these evening gatherings 24.8 x 33 cm (9¾ x 13 in.) (each folio) Degas would draw members of the company as well as make studies for his own work. 95.GD.35 The sketches embrace a variety of themes but are mostly of the cafe-concert and ballet and reflect Degas's constant processing and reprocessing of material for his paintings and prints. Altogether thirty-eight of the artist's sketchbooks survive, twenty-nine in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris. These pages show the composer Ernest Reyer sitting among washerwomen. The inscription at the top of the page states that "for a long time Reyer has been offering a 112 FRENCH SCHOOL