Women Bathing: Day

"Women Bathing: Day" is a compelling lithograph created by Camille Pissarro French, 1830-1903, during the mature phase of his career, spanning 1890-1900. While Pissarro is most celebrated for his foundational role in Impressionist painting, the final decades of his life saw him increasingly dedicated to graphic mediums, utilizing them for both experimentation and broader dissemination of his work.

This piece, classified as a Print, utilizes the sophisticated technique of chine collé. The composition, rendered entirely in black ink, was printed onto thin cream laid paper, which was simultaneously affixed (laid down) onto a thicker, off-white wove support sheet during the printing process. This technique allowed Pissarro to maximize the luminosity and textural subtlety of the delicate paper, providing an exceptional surface for the nuanced tonal range achievable through lithography.

The subject matter reflects the artist’s recurring interest in the depiction of working-class or rural figures engaging in daily life. The scene captures women performing ablutions in a pastoral setting, a motif common in the history of art, but treated here with a quiet intimacy characteristic of Pissarro’s vision of peasant life in France. Unlike his earlier, brightly colored Impressionist works, this late period emphasizes stable figure study and meticulous draftsmanship. The development of high-quality prints allowed the artist to disseminate his artistic philosophy widely, and as a result of Pissarro’s death date, images of this lithograph are often globally considered part of the public domain. This significant example of Pissarro’s graphic experimentation is maintained in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.