Bather Drying Herself

Bather Drying Herself

Edgar Degas

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Edgar Degas greatly admired the female figure. Whereas his depictions of ballerinas focus on the elegant, performative body, his studies of women bathing show an equal appreciation for the uninhibited gestures of this private activity. In intimate, close-up portrayals, Degas depicted his models seated, crouched, or standing, often in contorted poses as they lifted arms and legs to wash or dry themselves. Chalk and pastels helped him capture the play of light and movement in these domestic choreographies. In this relatively abstract portrayal, he used white chalk to offset the color of the paper and to suggest the curvature of the woman’s back and arms.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.