Modern life and the way that ordinary people spent their free time were popular subjects with many Impressionist painters. Monet, Renoir and Degas show us the theatres, cafés, and popular countryside resorts of late 19th-century Paris.

Circuses were much loved among the middle and lower classes all over Europe. They were often permanent structures rather than touring tents, and the Cirque Fernando was a building on the boulevard Rochechouart in Paris. Toulouse Lautrec and Renoir also painted performers there. Miss La La appeared in Paris in January 1879 where Degas studied her performance and made several preparatory drawings.

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