The Cleveland Museum of Art
The Laundresses
Description
The Impressionist artist Edgar Degas explored etching briefly, from about 1875 through 1880. Created during this period, The Laundresses depicts several young women working at a Parisian laundry shop, hanging washed clothing and ironing. It is Degas’s only intaglio print that focused on laundresses, a popular subject in contemporary novels. Through the women’s hunched postures and the scale of the laundry pile at lower right, the artist emphasized the difficulty of such work.
Provenance
Studio of the artist, Paris; (his sale, Galerie Manzi-Joyant, Paris, November 22-23, 1918, no. 95); (sale, Kornfeld and Klipstein, Bern, Switzerland, June 20, 1973, no. 161); (Artemis Group/David Carritt Limited, London); Josefowitz Collection, Lausanne, Switzerland, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Official Citations
Curatorial Affinity Stream
Continuing the Universe of Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917)
Prints • France, 19th century • Harmonious Works & Contemporaries
Continuous Discovery