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Lot Essay
Degas was fascinated by the idea of producing unorthodox hybrids. He was both deeply wedded to tradition and in love with experimentation and new technology, using innovative techniques to create transfer lithographs, monotypes and counterproofs. The present work is one of three counterproofs he produced from the pastel Femme au bain (Lemoisne, no. 1310). He first transferred the original pastel to another sheet by passing it through a printing press face down on a blank piece of paper. The resulting image was heightened with pastel before being passed through the press again, possibly more than once. This, the final iteration, was once again heightened with pastel.
In the sequence of counterproofs based on Femme au bain Degas explored different possibilities inherent in the original composition. Degas reworked the present counterproof with pastel to a greater extent than in the other two versions and enlarged and deepened the space surrounding the bather. He extended the drapery and the towel above the figure and defined more clearly the outlines of the tub against the floor. While these adjustments contribute to a more precise rendering of the figure in space, the artist sustains the atmospheric effect of light filtering through the room by contrasting the vibrant hues of his pastels with the whiteness of the sheet.
This complex, multilayered work deliberately obscures the method by which it was produced. Only Degas’ closest friends were aware of this aspect of his studio practice, and fewer still were ever admitted to his atelier to view his experiments, or essais, as he called them. Even the sales after his death shed little light on this aspect of his career—many of his impressions as they were called (such as the present work) were bundled together in large lots, to be bought by dealers and subsequently disappear from view once again.
In contrast to his oil portraits of women, in which the faces are clearly delineated, and the sitters frequently identifiable, these late images of bathers show anonymous women bathing, washing and drying themselves. They are depictions which forgo traditional depictions of the feminine ideal to concentrate on the sheer physicality of the human form. While such depictions offended contemporary sensibilities, these reactions were conditioned by the fashion for nudes to be shown in titillating poses, coyly aware of being on display. Degas’ aim was instead to show women, and by extension humanity, as it exists out of the public eye. The women should appear, in his famous phrase, as if they were being seen “through a keyhole.” In so doing, Degas did nothing less than rescue the nude as a legitimate subject for art in the 20th century.
In the sequence of counterproofs based on Femme au bain Degas explored different possibilities inherent in the original composition. Degas reworked the present counterproof with pastel to a greater extent than in the other two versions and enlarged and deepened the space surrounding the bather. He extended the drapery and the towel above the figure and defined more clearly the outlines of the tub against the floor. While these adjustments contribute to a more precise rendering of the figure in space, the artist sustains the atmospheric effect of light filtering through the room by contrasting the vibrant hues of his pastels with the whiteness of the sheet.
This complex, multilayered work deliberately obscures the method by which it was produced. Only Degas’ closest friends were aware of this aspect of his studio practice, and fewer still were ever admitted to his atelier to view his experiments, or essais, as he called them. Even the sales after his death shed little light on this aspect of his career—many of his impressions as they were called (such as the present work) were bundled together in large lots, to be bought by dealers and subsequently disappear from view once again.
In contrast to his oil portraits of women, in which the faces are clearly delineated, and the sitters frequently identifiable, these late images of bathers show anonymous women bathing, washing and drying themselves. They are depictions which forgo traditional depictions of the feminine ideal to concentrate on the sheer physicality of the human form. While such depictions offended contemporary sensibilities, these reactions were conditioned by the fashion for nudes to be shown in titillating poses, coyly aware of being on display. Degas’ aim was instead to show women, and by extension humanity, as it exists out of the public eye. The women should appear, in his famous phrase, as if they were being seen “through a keyhole.” In so doing, Degas did nothing less than rescue the nude as a legitimate subject for art in the 20th century.