After the Bath (Large Version)

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

Edgar Degas made many works depicting a woman stepping out of a bath as a maid waits with a large towel or robe. He revised this image throughout several prints over the course of two years, using transfer paper to vary its cropping and scale. The process of copying the image resulted in a distinctly grainy texture in tonal areas, such as the woman’s back. Degas’s technique was experimental and highly unusual, pushing the boundaries of lithography at the time. When Edgar Degas made this print, transfer lithography was a relatively new technique for artistic use.