The Woman Ironing 2 by Degas

Part of his series of canvases dedicated to the labor of working women, this striking work by Degas Edgar, associated with the Realist movement, stands under the title of “The Woman Ironing 2” within his production. The artist enters the stifling intimacy of a workshop to capture the monotony and hardness of manual labor. This painting bears witness to his close observation of professional gestures and his ability to reveal everyday nobility.

The worker is depicted standing in the center, her body leaning towards the left in a pose of intense effort and absolute concentration. She wears a short-sleeved pink blouse and a long dark blue skirt, her brown hair pulled back. Both of her hands firmly hold the handle of a black iron which she guides with force over a large, dark and heavy cloth laid out on the wooden work table. On the left of the image, a window veiled with a white curtain filters a soft light that illuminates her back, while the back wall has an ochre-beige tone.

This work demonstrates the artist’s craftsmanship in rendering material and volume. The painter deploys a thick and vigorous brushstroke, almost sculptural, to structure the ironer’s silhouette and translate the physical effort with exceptional anatomical truth and great power of expression.