Woman with a Towel

Woman with a Towel, created by Edgar Degas in 1894, is a powerful drawing that exemplifies the artist's late-career commitment to observing the private movements of women. The medium employed is pastel on cream-colored wove paper, notable for its inclusion of red and blue fibers interwoven throughout the sheet. Degas frequently utilized pastel in the 1890s, appreciating its immediacy and ability to blend the spontaneous qualities of drawing with the dense saturation of paint.

This piece, classified specifically as a drawing, captures an intimate moment: a female nude drying herself after a bath. Degas was less concerned with classical ideals of the female form and more interested in the unposed, private routines of his subjects, often using unexpected, intimate viewpoints. The energetic application of the pastel heightens the texture of the towel and the nuanced warmth of the skin tones. The artist’s choice of the unusual fibrous paper base, combined with the brilliant hues of the pastel, allows light to interact intensely with the surface, achieving a vibrant luminosity characteristic of his late style.

Produced in the mid-1890s, the work reflects a profound artistic shift, focusing intently on color, light, and movement over strict optical accuracy. Woman with a Towel is a key example from Degas’s celebrated series of female nudes and bathers. Although the original work is a fragile pastel on paper, high-quality archival prints reflecting this significant moment in art history are sometimes made available through public domain initiatives today. The drawing is housed in the distinguished collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.