Woman Bathing

1890-1891

Mary Cassatt

Artist, American, 1844 - 1926

A pale-skinned woman bends over a basin of water on a washstand in this vertical, colored print. The woman is angled away from us so only her ear and the curve of her forehead are visible beyond her hunched shoulder. Her upper body is bare, her dress having been unfastened so it hangs around her waist. The dress is striped with frosty green, shell pink, and the cream white of the paper. Light gleams on her dark brown hair, which is tied up and back. She cups her hands in the light blue water of the white basin. Two bottles sit at the back corner of the washstand, and a mirror reflects the top of her head. The fawn-brown washstand is boxy, and a handled white pitcher painted with muted pink flowers is at the front left corner, which is closest to us. The wall beyond the washstand is pale, arctic blue, as is the carpet, which is also patterned with pea -green leaves. The artist signed the work in graphite under the lower right corner, “Mary Cassatt.”

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    color drypoint and aquatint on laid paper

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Dimensions

    plate: 36.83 × 26.35 cm (14 1/2 × 10 3/8 in.)
    sheet: 42.3 x 30.5 cm (16 5/8 x 12 in.)

  • Accession

    1950.1.41

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Mathews and Shapiro 1989, no. 10, iii/iv

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

McVitty

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1951

  • Mary Cassatt and her Parisian friends, Pasadena Art Institute, CA, 1951, no. 41.

1962

  • A Generation of Draughtsmen, The University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, 1962.

1963

  • American Artists as Print Makers, Westmoreland County Museum of Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania, 1963, no. 43.

1965

  • Master Prints from the Rosenwald Collection, Virginia Museum of Arts, Richmond; Philadelphia Museum of Art 1965, no. 112.

1971

  • An Impressionist View on Paper - from the Lessing Rosenwald Collection of the National Gallery, Washington, D.C, Art Gallery at the University of Notre Dame, 1971, no. 11.

1989

  • Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, 1989-1990., no. 10-III, repro.

2024

  • Mary Cassatt at Work, Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young, Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 2024-2025 (shown only in San Francisco).

Bibliography

1979

  • Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Graphic Work. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979, no. 148, iv/v.

1989

  • Mathews, Nancy Mowll, and Barbara Stern Shapiro. Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989, no. 10, iii/iv.

1996

  • Mathews, Nancy Mowll. Cassatt: A Retrospective. New York: H.L. Levin Associates, 1996, p. 172.

2024

  • Thompson, Jennifer A. and Garber, Laurel, editors. Mary Cassatt at Work. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young, Legion of Honor, San Francisco; Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2024: 290.

Inscriptions

lower right in graphite: Mary Cassatt

Watermarks

MBM

Wikidata ID

Q65081090

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