After the Bath: Seated Woman Drying Herself
Overall (irregular): 14 × 10 9/16 inches (35.6 × 26.8 cm)
Framed: 26 1/8 × 22 × 2 inches (66.37 × 55.88 × 5.08 cm)
Oak Hall Exhibition, Oak Hall, Kansas City, MO, October 5–9, 1927, no cat., as La Sortie du Bain.
Anatomy and Art, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art
and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, MO, May 8–June 5, 1960,
no. 60, as Woman Bathing.
Drawings by Degas, City Art Museum of Saint Louis, January
20–February 26, 1967; Philadelphia Museum of Art, March 10–April 30, 1967;
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, May 16–June 25, 1967, no. 132, as
Woman Bathing
.
Mary Cassatt Among The Impressionists, Joslyn Art Museum,
Omaha, NE, April 10–June 1, 1969, no. 28, as Woman Bathing.
Master Drawings from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis, September 22–December 3, 1989; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 17–March 25, 1990, unnumbered, as Woman Bathing, Seen from Behind.
European Drawings from Polish Collections (additions made from the Nelson-Atkins collection), The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 17–June 6, 1993, hors. cat.
Edgar Degas: The Many Dimensions of a Master French Impressionist,
Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, FL, April 2–May 15, 1994; Mississippi
Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, May 30–July 31, 1994; The Dayton Art Institute,
Dayton, OH, August 13–October 9, 1994, no. 14 (Dayton only), as
After the Bath, Seated Woman Drying Herself
.
Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
The Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, June 23–August 18, 1996; The Cummer
Museum of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL, September 20–November 29, 1996;
The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, December 21,
1996–March 2, 1997, no. 74, as
After the Bath: Woman Seated Drying Herself
.
Color and Line: Masterworks on Paper, The Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, May 5–November 11, 2007, no cat.
Women in Paris, 1850–1900, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, March 22, 2019–March 22, 2020, no cat.
In writing about the subject of this pastel, Degas said he aimed to show "a human creature preoccupied with herself - a cat who licks herself…as if you had looked through a key-hole."
This pastel belongs to a series of studies Degas made of women grooming themselves. He intended to show these women "without their coquetry" (without makeup or fashionable clothing, which he perceived as a means of trickery). He executes this by catching his model nude in a private moment. Unaware of Degas' presence, she is the object of the artist's and viewer's gaze, "a human creature" rather than an individual with agency.
Purchased from the artist by Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, stock no. 3365, as La sortie du bain, June 29, 1895–1896 [1];
Purchased from Durand-Ruel by William Rockhill Nelson (1841–1915), Kansas City, MO, July 6, 1896–April 13, 1915;
To his wife, Ida Nelson (née Houston, 1853–1921), Kansas City, MO, 1915–October 6, 1921;
By descent to their daughter, Laura Kirkwood (née Nelson,
1883–1926), Kansas City, MO, 1921–February 27, 1926;
Inherited by her husband, Irwin Kirkwood (1878–1927), Kansas City, MO, 1926–August 29, 1927;
Laura Nelson Kirkwood Residuary Trust,Kansas City, MO,
1927–January 23, 1928 [2];
Purchased from Laura Nelson Kirkwood Residuary Trustees by Loew’s
Incorporated, New York, January 23, 1928 [3];
Purchased from Loew’s by Herbert M. Woolf (1880–1964), Kansas City,
MO, after January 24, 1928;
Given by Woolf to his sister, Mrs. David M. Lighton (née Gertrude
Woolf, ca. 1877–1961), Kansas City, MO, ca. 1928–April 24, 1935;
Given by Mrs. David M. Lighton to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
Kansas City, MO, 1935.
NOTES:
[1] Email from Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel et Cie., Paris, to Nicole Myers, NAMA, January 11, 2016, NAMA curatorial file.
[2] As early as 1927, art advisor to the NAMA trustees, R. A. Holland, noted the pastel in the contents of Oak Hall, Nelson’s mansion, as one to keep for the budding museum’s collection. Letter from Fred C. Vincent, Laura Nelson Kirkwood Trustee, to Herbert V. Jones, NAMA Trustee, December 28, 1927, NAMA curatorial files. It is unclear why the pastel remained in Oak Hall to be sold to Loew’s.
[3] Loew’s bought the entire contents of Oak Hall, where the pastel still hung. A few artworks, though not this pastel, were retained by the museum trustees for the future museum. See “Lump Oak Hall Sale,” Kansas City Star 48, no. 128 (January 23, 1928): 1. Starting the following day, Loew’s resold objects that they could not use to decorate their theater chains. See “A Resale from Oak Hall,” Kansas City Star 48, no. 129 (January 24, 1928): 1.
“Kansas City,” American Art News 13, no. 30 (May 1, 1915): 5.
“Oak Hall Open Wednesday,” Kansas City Star48, no. 15(October 2, 1927): 2A, as La Sortie du Bain.
News Flashes (The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) 1, no. 11 (May 12–31, 1935): 2, as Aprés le Bain .
M[inna] K. P[owell], “In Gallery and Studio: News and Views of the Week in Art,” Kansas City Star 55, no. 242 (May 17, 1935): 12, as After the Bath .
“Liberal with Art,” Kansas City Star 56, no. 106 (January 1, 1936): 1.
M[inna] K. P[owell], “Art,” Kansas City Star99, no. 215 (September 7, 1936): 5, as Woman Bathing.
Winifred Shields, “Degas Works Sold at Auction Are in French Exhibit Here,” Kansas City Star 70, no. 258 (June 2, 1950): 21, as Woman Bathing.
Agnes Mongan and Paul J. Sachs, Drawings in the Fogg Museum of Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940), 1:363.
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of
Fine Arts: Founders and Benefactors
(Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins
Museum of Fine Arts, 1940), 24, as Woman Bathing.
Ross E. Taggart, ed.,
Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of
Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts,
4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary
Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 122, (repro.), as Woman Bathing
.
“Anatomy and Art: May 8 to June 5, 1960,” exh. cat.,
The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum Bulletin
3, no. 1 (1960): 21, as Woman bathing.
Agnes Mongan,
Memorial Exhibition: Works of Art from the Collection of Paul J. Sachs
[1878–1965], Given and Bequeathed to the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard
University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
, exh. cat. (1965; Cambridge, MA: Fogg Art Museum, 1971), unpaginated.
Jean Sutherland Boggs, Drawings by Degas, exh. cat. (St. Louis: City Art Museum of St. Louis, 1966), 199–200, (repro.), as Woman Bathing.
“Degas the Draughtsman,” Apollo 85, no. 60 (February 1967): 129,
(repro.), as Woman bathing.
William M. Ittman, Jr., “Drawings by Degas,”
Master Drawings
5, no. 2 (November 1967): 195–96.
William A. McGonagle, Mary Cassatt Among The Impressionists, exh. cat. (Omaha, NE: Joslyn Art Museum, 1969), 38, 72, (repro.), as Woman Bathing .
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 176, 188, (repro.), as Woman Bathing.
Henry C. Haskell, “Gallery Rules and Later Gifts: Nelson Had His Reasons,” Kansas City Star 94, no. 113 (January 13, 1974): E, as Woman Bathing .
Philippe Brame and Theodore Reff,
Degas et Son Œuvre, A Supplement
(New York: Garland, 1984), no. 114, pp. 124–25, (repro.), as
Femme Se Baignant
.
“Museums to Sports, KC Has It All,” American Water Works Association Journal 79, no. 4 (April 1987): 133.
Roger Ward and Mark S. Weil,
Master Drawings from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City,
Missouri,
exh. cat. (St. Louis: Washington University Museum of Art, 1989), 6, 10,
36, (repro.), as Woman Bathing.
Patricia Corbett, “Connoisseur’s World: Power Lines,”
Connoisseur
219, no. 934 (November 1989): 44, as
Woman Bathing, Seen from Behind
.
Donald Hoffmann, “Drawings Tell Ignored Value of Collection,”
Kansas City Star
110, no. 135 (February 25, 1990): [1]J, 3J, (repro.), as
Woman Bathing, Seen from Behind
.
“Special Exhibitions: Master Drawings,” Newsletter (The
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (March 1990), (repro.), as
After the Bath
.
Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes,
High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art 1933
– 1993 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
1993), 34n1, as After the Bath.
Karen Wilkin,
Edgar Degas: The Many Dimensions of a Master French Impressionist
, exh. cat. (Dayton, OH: Dayton Art Institute, 1994), 48, 162, (repro.), as
After the bath, Seated Woman Drying Herself.
“Music Teachers National Association National Convention, March
23–27, 1996, Kansas City, Missouri,” American Music Teacher 45,
no. 4 (February–March 1996): 23.
Roger Ward, Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 10, 30, 225–27, (repro.), as After the Bath: Woman Seated Drying Herself.
Newsletter(The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (July 1998):
5, (repro.).
Bill Blankenship, “Drawings from Within,” Topeka Capital-Journal (July 12, 1998): D1, (repro.), as After the Bath: Seated Woman Drying Herself.
Annette Haudiquet,
De Delacroix à Marquet: Donation Senn-Foulds, Dessins
, exh. cat. (Paris: Somogy éditions d’art, 2011), 198, 200, (repro.), as
Après le bain: femme assise s’essuyant.
Michel Schulman, Edgar Degas: The First Digital Catalogue Raisonné , (February 2, 2020): https://www.degas-catalogue.com/apres-le-bain-1210.html, no. MS-1430, (repro), as After the Bath.
Meghan L. Gray, “Edgar Degas, After the Bath: Seated Woman Drying Herself, ca. 1885,” catalogue entry, and Rachel Freeman, “Edgar Degas, After the Bath: Seated Woman Drying Herself, ca. 1885,” technical entry, French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2023), https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.620.
![Seated Nude (Study for the “Legend of Giotto” [unrealized work])](/internal/media/dispatcher/35960/thumbnail)
