Edgar Degas: Femme s’essuyant

Edgar Degas (1834-1917), *Femme s’essuyant,* signed ‘Degas’ (upper right) pastel on paper laid down on card laid down on panel, 38 ¾ x 27 ½ in. (98.3 x 70.2 cm.), Drawn circa 1899, Image Source: Christie’s

“Among the pastels Degas exhibited in the final Impressionist exhibition of 1886 were ten works which marked the debut of his domestic bathers theme—“Suite de nuds [sic] de femmes se baignant, se lavant, se séchant, s’essuyant …” These scenes of the female nude à sa toilette were deemed scandalous; viewers assumed the artist’s models to be prostitutes, and the rooms those of seedy, cheap hotels. Painting a bather as the mythical Diana or the biblical Susanna was perfectly acceptable in the official Salon—however, as Degas remarked to his dealer Ambroise Vollard, “a woman undressing, never!” (Quoted in A. Vollard, Degas: An Intimate Portrait, New York, 1937, p. 48).
“Hitherto the nude has always been represented in poses which presuppose an audience,” Degas explained to the artist George Moore, “but these women of mine are honest, simple folk, unconcerned by any other interests than those involved in their physical condition. Here she is washing her feet. It is as if you looked through the keyhole” (quoted in R. Kendall, op. cit., 1987, p. 311).”
READ FULL ESSAY: Christie’s