The Bath

Prints and Drawings

1905

Suzanne Valadon
French, 1865-1938

While she received little formal artistic training, Suzanne Valadon had many opportunities to observe artists at work as she modelled for painters such as Henri de Toulouse- Lautrec and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Valadon’s experiences as an artist’s model informed her own renderings of female subjects, whom she portrayed sympathetically and realis- tically as they engage in everyday domestic activities. The Bath is one such deliberately rough and unidealized scene: a young girl bathes with the help of her grandmother. Despite their physical intimacy, the child looks away, her icy blue stare complicating the nurturing relationship a viewer might expect from this type of scene.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Suzanne Valadon
Title: The Bath
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1905
Medium: Pastel, with fabricated black chalk and stumping on tan wove paper, edge mounted on millboard
Dimensions: 68.5 × 54.8 cm (27 × 21 5/8 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph R. Shapiro
Reference Number: 1996.640

The Art Institute of Chicago, “The Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Randall Shapiro Collection,” February 23–April 14, 1985, pp. 107 and 112, cat. 156, fig. 114.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Undressed: The Fashion of Privacy”, June 22-September 29, 2013

Sold by Galerie Drouant-David, Paris, to Eric E. Estorick (1913–1993), London, June 19, 1952 [letter from Ray Perman of the Grosvenor Gallery, London, of October 7, 2003]. Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Randall Shapiro, by 1985 [Chicago 1985]; given to the Art Institute, 1996.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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