The Toilette after the Bath by Degas

Penetrating the intimate closed world of a Parisian boudoir, this highly daring work by Degas Edgar, associated with the Realist movement, stands under the title of “The Toilette after the Bath” among his nudes. The artist abandons classical idealization to capture a common gesture of female grooming with uncompromising honesty. This painting illustrates his desire to seize the truth of the human body in its pure materiality, far from any theatrical artifice or academic complacency.

An entirely naked and beautiful woman is depicted in profile and from behind on the left side of the composition, standing gracefully on the edge of the bath. To her right, her attentive maid dressed in a white dress and wearing a light cap holds stretched in front of her a large white sheet falling in wide vertical folds. The bather’s left hand reaches out towards the sheet on the right to dry herself. In the center-bottom foreground, the curved wooden back of a chair stands out. The back of the room is a textured dark cobalt blue wall.

This work demonstrates the artist’s dazzling and magnificent craftsmanship in using pastels to model flesh. The painter deploys dense and textured hatching that beautifully catches the light, giving an almost sculptural presence to the female figure with an exceptional, unique and powerful virtuosity.