About this work
A woman sits beside a bath, drying her hair. She pitches forward, one arm raised to rub the towel on her neck, the other reaching back awkwardly — perhaps to steady herself, perhaps to grasp the towel draped over the chair.
Her back is turned to the viewer, her body arched and slightly twisted, the tension running the length of her spine, accentuated by its deep central line.
Degas applied numerous pastel layers, making the woman appear somewhat translucent,
with Prussian blue, cadmium yellow, and ochres as the predominant pigments.
Pink pastel is hatched over the grey areas of her back, building flesh that seems lit from within. The composition is tightly cropped, the figure nearly filling the picture plane — an intimacy that feels less composed than caught.
*Woman Drying Herself* depicts one of Degas's favourite subjects: a female bather drying her hair. This masterly work of his late career, probably executed when he was around 70, was found in his studio after he died.
Beginning in the late 1880s, Degas frequently portrayed women bathing or drying themselves, and this is among the most unstable, daring poses in the series.
In the late 1880s, Degas's eyesight had begun declining; his colours grew more intense, line became more independent from form, and his subjects' poses became more angular and even distorted — a departure from his earlier naturalism that brought him closer to the Symbolist use of colour and presaged elements of Expressionism.
Far from the classical nudes of ancient Greece and Rome, these were real women engaged in the everyday activities of washing or bathing — a deliberate attack on tradition.
Degas captured extremely intimate moments with great precision, choosing not to over-sexualise his subjects — a quality curator Richard Kendall considered particularly special.
The ungainly but authentic-looking pose makes it easy to believe that Degas was present in the woman's room, catching her before she could straighten herself — and that quality of stolen observation is exactly what makes this work so compelling as a living presence on the wall. It belongs in a room that can hold a moment of stillness: a bedroom, a dressing room, a reading corner with warm light. The palette — warm ochres, chalky blues, rosy skin — reads beautifully in natural daylight and glows under directional lamplight. It speaks to a viewer drawn to art that rewards looking closely: the closer you get, the more the surface reveals itself — layered strokes, raw paper, a body rendered in
