The prestigious invitation to Roseman in 1989 from the Paris Opéra Administration was greatly meaningful as the Dance holds a preeminent place in the cultural tradition of France and is an important subject in French art. The catalogue Les Arts du Théâtre de Watteau à Fragonard, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux (1980), states that the art of the eighteenth century in France was "strongly identified with the world of the theatre,'' ("profondément marqués par l'univers du théâtre''), which includes depictions of dancers by Watteau, Lancret, Boucher, and Fragonard.[2] Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in France, the dance was a recurring subject in works by Ingres, Corot, Manet, Degas, Rodin, Renoir, Bourdelle, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bakst, Matisse, Picasso, and Chagall, as well as Carpeaux, leading sculptor of the Second Empire, who created his famous group La Danse for the newly constructed Paris Opéra. Commissioned by Napoleon III and inaugurated in 1875 under the Third Republic, the majestic opera house crowns the grand Avenue de l'Opéra in the heart of Paris.