The American painter and printmaker Mary Cassatt spent her professional life in Paris, where she was a member of the Impressionist group. Woman Bathing belongs to a group of ten color prints that Cassatt showed at her first independent exhibition (at the Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris) in 1891. The abstract, linear quality of the nude's back drew the attention of Cassatt's colleague and sometime collaborator, Edgar Degas (1834–1917), who exclaimed, "I do not admit that a woman can draw like that."
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Artwork Details
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Title:Woman Bathing (La Toilette)
Artist:Mary Cassatt (American, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1844–1926 Le Mesnil-Théribus, Oise)
Date:1890–91
Medium:Drypoint and aquatint, printed in color from three plates; fourth state of four (Mathews & Shapiro)
Dimensions:plate: 14 5/16 x 10 9/16 in. (36.4 x 26.8 cm) sheet: 17 x 11 3/4in. (43.2 x 29.8cm)
Classification:Prints
Credit Line:Gift of Paul J. Sachs, 1916
Accession Number:16.2.2
Signature: in graphite lower right: "Mary Cassatt"
Inscription: in graphite lower right: "Edition de 25 serie Imprimée par l'artiste et M. Leroy"
Marking: lower center at edge of image: blue MC collector's mark (Lugt 604: Mary Cassatt)
Paul J. Sachs (American)
Washington. National Gallery of Art. "Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints," June 18, 1989 - August 27, 1989.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," April 17–August 20, 1995.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Mary Cassatt: Drawings and Prints in the Metropolitan Museum of Art," October 20, 1998–June 24, 1999.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Degas and the Nude," October 9, 2011–February 5, 2012.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints: Collectors' Collections," February 19–October 5, 2020.
Colta Ives, The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Great Wave: The Influence of Japanese Woodcuts on French Prints. Ex. cat. New York, 1974, fig. no. 53, pp. 54-55, ill.
Adelyn Dohme Breeskin Mary Cassatt. A Catalogue Raisonne of the Graphic Work. Washington, D.C., 1979, cat. no. 148 v/v, fig. no. Frontispiece, p. 64, ill.
Nancy Mowll Mathews, Barbara Stern Shapiro Mary Cassatt, the Color Prints Ex. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., June 18-Aug. 27, 1989; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Sept. 9-Nov. 5, 1989 and the Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Mass., Nov. 25, 1989-Jan. 21, 1990. New York, 1989, cat. no. 10 iv/iv, p. 134, ill.
Deborah J. Johnson "Cassatt's Color Prints of 1890: The Unique Evolution of a Palette." Notes in the History of Art. Spring 1990, pp. 31-39.
Elliot Bostwick Davis "Mary Cassatt Color Prints." in The Magazine Antiques. vol. 154, no. 4, New York, 1998, fig. no. Plate II, p. 485, ill.
George T. M. Shackelford, Xavier Rey Degas and the Nude. Exh. cat., Museum of fine Arts, Boston, Oct. 9, 2011-Feb. 5, 2012 ; and Musée d'Orsay, Paris March 12-July 1. Boston, 2012, fig. no. 125, 115, 225, ill.
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The Met's collection of drawings and prints—one of the most comprehensive and distinguished of its kind in the world—began with a gift of 670 works from Cornelius Vanderbilt, a Museum trustee, in 1880.
