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The Child's Bath
Mary Cassatt, 1893
Mary Cassatt, an American painter who worked in Paris, made this painting in 1893. A woman holds a child on her lap and guides the child's foot into a washbasin. The two figures are centred and close together, and the scene is about touch and attention.
The view is from steeply above, so the floor seems to tip up towards the picture surface. Patterns are everywhere: the dress, the wallpaper and the carpet. The result is a flat, shallow space. The Art Institute of Chicago links this to Cassatt's interest in Japanese art in the 1890s, when she studied Japanese woodblock prints, which often use flat colour and unusual viewpoints.
The painting was shown widely from 1893. The Art Institute bought it in 1910, and it was the first Cassatt to enter the museum's collection. It is 101 by 67 centimetres.
From the museum record
| Artist | Mary Cassatt |
|---|---|
| Date | 1893 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Size | 101.3 × 67.3 cm (39 15/16 × 26 1/2 in.) |
| Museum | The Art Institute of Chicago |
| Credit line | Robert A. Waller Fund |
| Accession number | 1910.2 |
| Licence | Public domain (CC0) |
Source: The Art Institute of Chicago collection record. Facts such as dates, sizes and credit lines come from that record. The write-up above was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the museum record and standard references. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
