Woman in a Tub

This work is part of the Suite of nudes of women bathing, washing, drying, rubbing down, combing their hair or having it combed that Degas created in preparation for the eighth and last exhibition of the Impressionists in 1886. Although it is not conclusive that the pastel was exhibited at that show, it is viewed today as one of the artist’s finest pastels. It is remarkable for his mastery at applying successive layers of pigment, his unconventional use of color in which blues are as intense in the background as they are in the foreground, and his unusual bird’s eye view of a woman caught in an intimate moment as if, as Degas said, “… one were watching her through a keyhole.”