Leaving the Bath

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

In Leaving the Bath , a woman is seen from behind as she awkwardly grips a tub while cautiously stepping out of it. Nearby, a maid is mostly obscured by a cloth meant to dry and warm her. Their sketchlike surroundings communicate intimacy and privacy and, in what would become a characteristic aspect of his bather imagery, Edgar Degas places the viewer in a voyeuristic perspective, with the two women unaware of our presence. The artist began to explore etching in the 1850s, registering in the print department of Paris’s Bibliothèque Nationale so that he could closely study the works of past masters such as Rembrandt van Rijn. Degas saw prints as having an important part to play in the Impressionists’ group exhibitions and displayed them alongside paintings there. Edgar Degas created this print by drawing on a copper plate, not with a traditional etching needle, but with a copper rod—a component of early electric lamps. This nontraditional tool produced an effect that Degas appreciated, and he experimented further after bringing the plate home by working on it with materials ranging from an emery pencil to a stone.