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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 skin of both the woman and baby are the white of the paper. Their facial features and bodies are outlined with light brown, and their hair drawn in with faint 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 is a flat area of straw yellow. A few touches of teal blue near the neckline appear to have run into the surrounding ink. 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. The tub and the corner where the floor meets the wall are drawn in with brown lines. There are some smudges across the paper, especially at the edges.

Mary Cassatt

The Bath, 1890-1891

Not on View

Medium

color drypoint and softground etching on laid paper

Dimensions

plate: 32 × 24.8 cm (12 5/8 × 9 3/4 in.)

sheet: 41.9 × 28.9 cm (16 1/2 × 11 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Rosenwald Collection

Catalogue Raisonné

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

Accession Number

1943.3.2735

Artists / Makers

Mary Cassatt (artist) American, 1844 - 1926

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

recto: at bottom center, in graphite, in later hand: A; verso: at upper right, in graphite, in later hand: 15 / B P T; at upper center, in graphite, in later hand: IV

Marks and Labels

none

Exhibition History

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

1989: Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamston, MA, 1989-1990, no. 5-IV, repro.

Bibliography

1967: Breeskin, Adelyn, and Donald H. Karshan. The Graphic Art of Mary Cassatt. New York, Museum of Graphic Art, 1967, p. 25, no. 49.

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

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

1995: Costantino, Maria. Mary Cassatt. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1995, pp. 66-67, no. 84.