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The Child’s Bath
- Artist
- Mary Cassatt (1844–1926)
- Date
- 1893
- Dimensions
- 100.3 x 66.1 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, United States
The Child’s Bath shows a woman washing the feet of a little girl seated on her lap, in a basin of water. Both heads bend down towards the water, absorbed in this simple everyday moment.
A closer look
Cassatt chose a high viewpoint, looking down on the scene, so that the boldly patterned floor carpet, the striped dress of the woman and the white enamel jug and basin form flat, decorative areas. This composition owes much to the Japanese prints that Cassatt, like many artists in Paris, had studied closely. Yet the figures remain warm and real: the protective arm around the child’s waist, the child’s hand resting on the woman’s knee. Cassatt depicted mothers and children many times, without sentimentality.
History of the painting
The Child's Bath was shown in Cassatt's first large solo exhibition, at Durand-Ruel's gallery in Paris in 1893. In 1910, while Cassatt was still alive, the Art Institute of Chicago bought it, one of the first works by her to enter an American museum. It has since become one of the most popular paintings in the collection and an emblem of her intimate, modern vision of motherhood.
More by Mary Cassatt
In this gallery
Breakfast in Bed
Little Girl in a Blue Armchair
Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge
Young Mother Sewing
The Cup of Tea
Famous works elsewhere
- The Boating Party 1893