art-Degas.com
Edgar Degas 1834-1917
Edgar Degas - Bather Stepping into a Tub 1890
 Bather Stepping into a Tub |
From Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City:
Degas’s interest in the motif of a nude entering the water apparently dates to his student days, when he copied the figure of a man scrambling over a riverbank from an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi after Michelangelo. This is one of seven pastels in which Degas ventured a modern version of the subject. The woman, her arms and legs splayed precariously against a zinc bathtub, powerfully manifests the combination of physical awkwardness and sensuality that characterizes the artist’s depictions of bathers.