This impression is printed on an irregular sheet of paper and as Barbara Shapiro states "An interesting use of Degas's use of paper is that he was often quite casual in placing an image on the sheet; sometimes it is placed off-center or tilted with respect to the margins. Also, a number of the prints are on sheets of paper whose decidedly irregular edges suggest that they may have been scraps found in the studio. Apparently Degas regarded these prints as keepsakes or personal records of his exploration of a pictorial idea". p. 258

Never had such care been taken that one print should differ from another as in France after 1870, nor had the taste for variants been so intense that each proof from a single plate was made into something individual and exceptional. Michael Melot, The Impressionist Print: Degas and his Group, 1994, p. 145