Woman Drying Herself
- Woman Drying Herself
Frame (outer): 41 1/4 × 41 3/8 × 4 in. (104.8 × 105.1 × 10.2 cm)
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Edgar Degas was the most accomplished draftsman of the Impressionists. “Woman Drying Herself” depicts one of his favorite subjects: a female bather drying her hair. This masterly work of his late career, probably executed when he was around 70, was found in his studio after he died.
Degas made more than 200 charcoal and pastel drawings of female bathers, as well as substantial numbers of oil paintings, lithographs, and sculptures. This drawing, from a set of five with identical composition, is on tracing paper, which was the artist's favorite support toward the end of his life. Compared with others from the series, it is only slightly finished. Degas uses heavy charcoal lines to emphasize the woman’s unconscious, habitual movements. The undeveloped background consists of a large anthropomorphic object—perhaps a towel or a servant—and a basin to the right, above which appears a series of indistinct toiletries on a shelf. These pictures of mundane bathers are highly unconventional within their art-historical context. They participate in a genre of representation traditionally dominated by classicized and eroticized depictions of unclothed females.
ProvenanceEstate of the artist [Lugt 658]; [Second Degas sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, lot 70, illus., December 11-13, 1918, as "Femme s’essuyant"]; [Jacques Seligmann, New York, Durand-Ruel, as of January 28, 1921]; sold to Dr. Albert C. Barnes (1872-1951), The Barnes Foundation, inv. no. 290, Merion, PA, January 28, 1921-May 24, 1935; [by exchange, New York, Etienne Bignou Gallery, as of May 24, 1935]; [Paris, Galerie Nunès et Fiquet] [Lemoisne 1423], as of 1946; Mrs. Robert Lee (Sarah Campbell) Blaffer (1885-1975), Houston, as of December 27, 1956; gift to MFAH, 1956.
Exhibition History"Degas," Grand Palais, Paris, February 9–May 16, 1988; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, June 16–August 28, 1988; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, September 27–January 8, 1989.
"Degas: Beyond Impressionism," The National Gallery, London, May 22–August 26, 1996; The Art Institute of Chicago, September 28, 1996–January 12, 1997.
"In the Company of Women: Selection from The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," The Seventh Regiment Armory, New York, May 6–13, 1998.
"Degas & America: The Early Collectors," High Museum of Art, Atlanta, February 28–May 27, 2001; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, June 16–September 9, 2001.
"Degas and the Nude," Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, October 9, 2011–January 29, 2012; Musée d'Orsay, Paris, April 2–July 15, 2012.
"Degas: A New Vision," National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, June 24–September 18, 2016; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, October 14, 2016–January 8, 2017.
Published References "A Permanent Legacy," introduction by Peter C. Marzio, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Hudson Hills Press, 1989. Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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![Bruges, D'Autrefois, Triptyque avec Trois Dessins: Un Canal [left panel]; D’Autrefois [center panel]; Le Tombeau de Marie de Bourgogne [right panel] (Bruges of Yesteryear, Triptych with Three Drawings: A Canal [left panel]; Of Yesteryear [central panel]; The Tomb of Mary of Burgundy) [right panel]](/internal/media/dispatcher/460834/thumbnail)
