The Morning Bath

Museum record 81528: The Morning Bath by Edgar Degas. A verified entry point for discovery.

What to notice

For The Morning Bath (record 81528), start with modern, expressive, atmospheric. Compare the focal subject, edge treatment, and atmosphere before moving on.

Discover

Later in his career Edgar Degas began using pastel more frequently and created some two hundred pastel drawings of bathers, including this example, which shows a woman stepping into a tub. The soft and crumbly consistency of this medium allowed him to both blend colors and apply more assertive marks that remain distinct. Here, the combination of these effects is evident in his handling of the various fabrics throughout. The woman is shown mid-step, her left leg already inside the tub and her right arm cl…