Après le Bain II (After the Bath II)

Après le Bain II (After the Bath II) by Edgar Degas, created between 1891 and 1892, is a significant late-career exploration of the artist's enduring fascination with the unposed female figure and the private rituals of domestic life. This piece is classified as a print, executed through the technique of lithography on wove paper. Lithography allowed Degas to explore deep tonal values and textural effects, enabling him to achieve a softness and richness rarely seen in the etchings of his contemporaries.

Throughout the period spanning 1876 to 1900, Degas frequently abandoned traditional oil painting to concentrate on pastel and graphic arts, using these media to capture fleeting, intimate moments. The subject matter here, a woman caught in the process of bathing or drying herself, is typical of the artist's mature output. Unlike academic representations, the subject is often viewed without idealization, observed either from an oblique angle or through a highly cropped composition, which heightens the sense of candid realism. The texture afforded by the lithograph medium enhances the perception of light and shadow on the figure and surrounding drapery.

Degas’s revolutionary approach redefined the nude in French art, shifting the focus from mythological narratives to the realities of contemporary existence. His commitment to documenting these quiet, everyday moments established him as a key figure in modern printmaking. While similar compositions exist in pastel, the technical demands of creating these fine art prints demonstrate Degas’s versatility and his dedication to printmaking as a serious artistic discipline.

This important lithograph, representing the culmination of Degas's decades-long study of the bather motif, resides in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art. The accessibility of such influential works ensures that these 19th-century prints remain central to the study of modern art history.