Degas's painting may look as if he had simply painted the scene in front of him, exactly as he saw it, but he planned out the composition enormously carefully.

The foreshortened figure of Miss La La dangling above us was the most straightforward part of the work. Degas made several preparatory sketches, quickly deciding on the final pose and only making slight adjustments to her outstretched arm and the angle of her face during the process of painting.

The architectural background clearly caused him more of a headache, and X-rays show that he made extensive changes to the structure behind Miss La La. The dome of the roof in the final painting is shallower than originally intended, and Miss La La is not hanging quite so high up in it. The painter Walter Sickert saw the painting in Degas's studio and noted that the artist had 'been unable to solve the problem of perspective and had hired a professional for the drawing of the architecture of the ceiling.'

It may be that this preparatory sketch is the drawing Sickert referred to, and is by Degas's unnamed professional - or it could be a working drawing by Degas but using the professional artist's drawing as a starting point.

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