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Woman with a Towel

1894 or 1898
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 817
Degas used his fingers, brushes, and sharp implements to smudge, scrape, and polish this pastel, creating a sense of movement and texture, and revealing layers of brilliant color. Black outlines drawn over the pastel emphasize the contrapposto turn of the muscular and monumental nude. The date Degas inscribed on the sheet has traditionally been read as 1894 but 1898 is more likely.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Woman with a Towel
  • Artist: Edgar Degas (French, Paris 1834–1917 Paris)
  • Date: 1894 or 1898
  • Medium: Pastel on cream-colored wove paper with red and blue fibers throughout
  • Dimensions: 37 3/4 x 30in. (95.9 x 76.2cm)
    Frame: 44 1/4 x 36 1/4 x 1 7/8 in. (112.4 x 92.1 x 4.8 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929
  • Object Number: 29.100.37
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

More Artwork

More Artwork
A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers (Madame Paul Valpinçon?), Edgar Degas French, Oil on canvas
A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers (Madame Paul Valpinçon?)
Edgar Degas
1865
Ceramic Horn, Glazed pottery, French
Ceramic Horn
French
late 18th or early 19th century
Woman Having Her Hair Combed, Edgar Degas French, Pastel on light green wove paper, now discolored to warm gray, affixed to original pulpboard mount
Woman Having Her Hair Combed
Edgar Degas
ca. 1886–88
Osage Warrior, Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin French, Watercolor and graphite on off-white wove paper, American
Osage Warrior
Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin
1805–7
Sunset, Eugène Delacroix French, Pastel on blue laid paper
Sunset
Eugène Delacroix
ca. 1850

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