Woman in a Tub (Degas)

Woman in a Tub (or The Tub) is one of a suite of pastels on paper created by the French painter Edgar Degas in the 1880s and is in the collection of the Hill-Stead Museum in Connecticut. The suite of pastels all featured nude women "bathing, washing, drying, wiping themselves, combing their hair or having it combed" and were created in readiness for the sixth and final Impressionist Exhibition of 1886. [1]

Woman in a Tub
ArtistEdgar Degas
Year1886
Typepastel on blue-grey paper
Dimensions69.9 cm × 69.9 cm (27.5 in × 27.5 in)
LocationHill–Stead Museum, Farmington, Connecticut

The work demonstrates Degas' mastery of pastel drawing and, like the other works in the suite, portrays a woman engaged in a mundane private activity, in this case spongeing down her bathtub. The same bathtub featured in several of the works in the series and, together with the model's red hair, suggested the women were of the working class, possibly even prostitutes, In their defence Degas retorted "my women are simple, honest creatures who are concerned with nothing beyond their physical occupations... it is as if you were looking through a keyhole" emphasising the innocence of the models and the voyeurism of the predominantly male viewing public. [2]

Associated Works

See also

References

  1. "Impressionists". Hill-Stead Museum. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  2. "Edgar Degas - The Tub". Sedefs Corner. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  3. "Woman in a Tub". Glasgow Museums. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  4. "Woman Drying Herself after the Bath". Norton Simon Museum. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  5. "Woman Bathing in a Shallow Tub". The Met. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  6. "The Tub". Musee d'Orsay. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  7. "Edgar Degas". Hiroshima Museum of Art. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  8. "Woman in a Tub". Glasgow Museums. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
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