The Bath

Mary Cassatt

1890–91 · Drypoint, soft-ground etching and aquatint, printed in black ink from one plate; fifth state of seventeen (Mathews & Shapiro) · Drawings and Prints

An associate of the Impressionists who worked in Paris, Cassatt depicted mothers and children without sentimentality. Here, she lends a timeless quality to a child’s bath by accentuating flat, patterned aspects of the composition. Cassatt was an experimental printmaker, monitoring her developing designs by printing intermediary states in black. These stand alone as independent works of art and compare meaningfully to later color impressions taken from the same plate. This is the only known impression of the fifth state of The Bath, with reinforced drypoint lines defining folds of the dress; incomplete burnishing produced the atmospheric gray tone.

Artist

Mary Cassatt

Date

1890–91

Medium

Drypoint, soft-ground etching and aquatint, printed in black ink from one plate; fifth state of seventeen (Mathews & Shapiro)

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Arthur Sachs, 1916