Bather Drying Herself

Edgar Degas

ca. 1883–84 · Charcoal and pastel on off-white laid paper · Drawings and Prints

Scenes of women bathing or drying themselves after a bath are a recurrent subject in Degas’s drawings and paintings. He depicted his models as if they were unaware of his presence, often from up close, imbuing these works with an erotic intimacy that verges on voyeurism. With their contorted poses, crouched down in a bathtub or leaning over to towel off their neck, back, or legs, Degas’s bathers serve as a pendant to his depictions of ballerinas, in which he focused on the elegant contours of the performing female body. Both offered opportunities to study the human form in movement and the play of light on the body, here emphasized by areas of dark shading in charcoal.

Artist

Edgar Degas

Date

ca. 1883–84

Medium

Charcoal and pastel on off-white laid paper

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1918