Woman in a Tub

In the spring of 1886 the Impressionists held their eighth and last group show, and Degas hung a suite of pastels of women bathing, washing, and drying themselves. This is one of them. A nude leans over a shallow tub, caught from an odd high angle as if the viewer had walked in unseen. Critics were unsettled. Some called the women ugly, and complained that Degas had insisted on ordinary, awkward, unposed moments rather than the smooth nudes the public expected. Degas said that earlier painters flattered their models, while he showed a woman as if seen through a keyhole. He worked this one in pastel on blue-grey paper. It is now at the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Connecticut.