Woman Bathing

"Woman Bathing," created by Mary Cassatt (American, 1844-1926) in collaboration with the French printer Leroy around 1890-1891, stands as a seminal example of the artist's mature printmaking style. The work is executed as a color aquatint and drypoint from three plates on off-white laid paper. This challenging, multi-plate process allowed Cassatt to achieve the delicate color harmonies and precise tonal variations that define her graphic output, moving beyond the simple black-and-white etchings common earlier in her career.

Cassatt was a key American exponent of Impressionism, though she spent much of her professional life based in France. During the late 1880s and early 1890s, she began focusing intensely on the technical possibilities of color prints, drawing inspiration from Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock examples that had captivated the Parisian art world. This piece reflects that influence through its deliberately flattened perspective, decorative patterning, and the strong linear contours created by the drypoint.

The subject matter focuses on an intimate female ritual, showing a woman engaged in the daily act of bathing. Cassatt's dedication to depicting the private, domestic lives of women provided a modern counterpoint to the idealized or mythological depictions of the female nude prevalent in 19th-century European art. Instead, she elevates moments of quiet dignity and personal routine, often capturing the bond between mother and child or solitary moments like this.

The skillful integration of precise drypoint lines against the soft, granular texture of the aquatint demonstrates Cassatt’s technical mastery in graphic art. This highly refined example of fin-de-siècle printmaking from the United States is held in the renowned collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, where it serves as a cornerstone for understanding the evolution of the Impressionism movement across different media. Due to its historical significance and age, this work, like many important prints from the period, is frequently reproduced and often available for study through digitized public domain initiatives.