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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 grass green, rose pink, and the cream white of the paper. Light gleams on her auburn hair, which is tied up and back. She cups her hands in the light blue water of the faintly yellow 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 sapphire blue, as is the carpet, which is also patterned with celery-green leaves. A mark with an oval, or a mirrored C, over an uppercase M, is stamped in royal blue at the bottom center of the print. The sheet is inscribed with graphite across the right half of the bottom margin, “Imprimée par l'artiste et M. Leroy Mary Cassatt.”

Mary Cassatt

Woman Bathing, 1890-1891

Not on View

Medium

color drypoint and aquatint on laid paper

Dimensions

plate: 36.4 x 26.7 cm (14 5/16 x 10 1/2 in.)

sheet: 43.2 x 29.8 cm (17 x 11 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Chester Dale Collection

Catalogue Raisonné

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

Accession Number

1963.10.253

Artists / Makers

Mary Cassatt (artist) American, 1844 - 1926

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

recto: at lower right in graphite: Imprimée par l'artiste et M. Leroy / Mary Cassatt / (25 épreuves); at lower left in graphite in later hand: E.962 set of 10 - R3; verso: at lower left in graphite in later hand: B-22-231

Marks and Labels

recto: Mary Cassatt (Lugt 604); verso: National Gallery of Art (Lugt 1932d)

Exhibition History

1936: Mary Cassatt, Baltimore Museum of Art, MD, 1936, no. 36.

1965: Graphic Arts from the Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965.

1967: Miss Mary Cassatt: Paintings and Graphic Arts, Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY, 1967.

1970: Mary Cassatt, 1844-1926, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970.

1988: Graphic Survey Show, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 1988-1989.

1995: Prints by James McNeill Whistler and His Contemporaries, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1995.

1998: Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman, The Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998-1999, no. 61, as The Bath (shown only in Washington).

Bibliography

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

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

1998: Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman. Exh. cat. The Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1998-1999: 84, 133, no. 61.