The Bath

1890-1891

Mary Cassatt

Artist, American, 1844 - 1926

A woman kneels to test the water in a freestanding bathtub with one hand as she braces a nude child against her knee with the other in this vertical, colored print. The people and objects are outlined with brown lines, and both the woman and baby’s hair are incised with delicate black lines. The woman’s hair is pulled back from a high forehead, and she has a straight nose, pursed lips, and a slight double chin. Her long-sleeved, floor-length dress has a narrow collar and is pleated across the chest and at the cuff we can see. The dress is filled in with a field of light yellow. The baby turns toward the woman’s body and hangs their arms over her bracing hand. The baby has short, wispy, black hair with delicate facial features, a rotund belly, and satisfyingly pudgy rolls on the legs. There are some smudges across the paper, especially at the edges.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    color drypoint, softground etching, and aquatint

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Dimensions

    plate: 32.07 × 24.77 cm (12 5/8 × 9 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1943.3.2738

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Mathews and Shapiro 1989, no. 5, vii/xvii

Artwork history & notes

Exhibition History

1951

  • Mary Cassatt and her Parisian Friends, Pasadena Art Institute, CA, 1951, no. 36.

1963

  • Prints and Drawings by Mary Cassatt from the Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1963, no cat.

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.

1967

  • The Graphic Art of Mary Cassatt, organized by the Museum of Graphic Art, New York, and circulated to 8 venues (Cooper Union Museum, New York; National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington D.C.; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Detroit Institute of Arts; Herron Museum of Art, Indianapolis; Cincinnati Art Museum; University of California, Los Angeles; 1967-1968, no. 50.

Bibliography

1967

  • Breeskin, Adelyn, and Donald H. Karshan. The Graphic Art of Mary Cassatt. New York, Museum of Graphic Art, 1967, p. 26, no. 50.

1979

  • Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Graphic Work. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979, no. 143, vi/xi.

1989

  • Mathews, Nancy Mowll, and Barbara Stern Shapiro. Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989, no. 5, vii/xvii.

Wikidata ID

Q64960329

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