Woman Bathing

1890-1891

Mary Cassatt

Artist, American, 1844 - 1926

Created with areas of muted color, a woman with pale skin bends over a basin on a washstand in this vertical print. The edges of the woman’s body and clothing, the washstand, and bowl and bottles in front of her are outlined with dark brown or black lines. The woman’s body is angled to our left and away from us, so we see her bare back and her left arm as that hand dips into the water in the bowl. The bodice of her dress is loose around her waist, and her full skirt falls to the floor. The fabric is patterned with ivory-white, sage-green, and pale pink vertical stripes. She hunches over the basin so we see her left ear and the back of her lowered head. Her chestnut-brown hair is pulled up and back. The basin is cream white, and two glass bottles sit next to it, to our left. The washstand has a raised ledge around the sides and back. A rectangular mirror is mounted on the back edge, and the top of the woman’s head is reflected there. The washstand and edges of the mirror are peanut-brown, and the inset top surface of the stand is white. We look slightly down onto a white, handled pitcher on the floor in front of the left corner of the washstand. The pitcher has a wide opening, and tea-brown flowers are painted on the rounded body. The wall behind the washstand and the wall reflected in the mirror is muted slate blue. The carpet across the bottom of the composition is patterned with parchment-brown flowers and leaves against a darker, denim-blue background. At the bottom center edge of the printed image, a royal-blue C and M are overlapped. An inscription written lightly in graphite in the margin beneath the right corner of the printed image is difficult to make out.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    color drypoint and aquatint on laid paper

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Dimensions

    plate: 36.51 × 26.67 cm (14 3/8 × 10 1/2 in.)
    sheet: 46.67 × 31.12 cm (18 3/8 × 12 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1946.21.92

  • Catalogue Raisonné

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

Artwork history & notes

Exhibition History

1948

  • American Graphic Art from the Eighteenth Century to the Present, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948.

1950

  • Prints by Mary Cassatt. Rosenwald Collection and gift of Miss Elisabeth Achelis, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1950.

1951

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

1958

  • Color Etchings and Aquatints by Mary Cassatt, Ogunquit Museum, ME, 1958.

1962

  • Paintings, Drawings, and Graphic Works by Manet, Degas, Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1962, no. 138, repro.

1963

  • Prints and Drawings by Mary Cassatt, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1963.

1964

  • Prints by Mary Cassatt, organized by the Smithsonian Travelling Exhibition Service and circulated to 10 venues (Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY; Norton Gallery & School of Art, Palm Beach, FL; University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI; Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS; Charles & Emma Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH; Columbus Gallery of Fine Art, Columbus, OH; Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA; and A.D. White Museum of Art at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY), 1964-1965.

1973

  • Mary Cassatt, 1844-1926, Newport Harbour Art Museum, CA; Santa Barbara Museum, CA, 1973-1974.

  • Whistler, Cassatt and Hassam: Three American Printmakers, Rutgers University Art Gallery, NJ, 1973.

2002

  • Defining Influence: Japonisme & the Western Artist, Sweet Briar College, Anne Gary Pannell Center Gallery, Sweet Briar, VA, 2002.

Bibliography

1979

  • Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Graphic Work. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979, no. 149, iv/iv.

1989

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

1996

  • Mathews, Nancy Mowll. Cassatt: A Retrospective. New York: H.L. Levin Associates, 1996, p. 173.

2002

  • McKinny, Gwen M. Defining Influence: Japonisme and the Western Artist. Sweet Briar, VA, 2002.

Watermarks

ED & Cie

Wikidata ID

Q65081059

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