Bathers Playing with a Crab

c. 1897
(French, 1841–1919)
Framed: 75.5 x 85.5 x 10 cm (29 3/4 x 33 11/16 x 3 15/16 in.); Unframed: 54.6 x 65.7 cm (21 1/2 x 25 7/8 in.)
Location: not on view
You can copy, modify, and distribute this work, all without asking permission. Learn more about CMA's Open Access Initiative.

Download, Print and Share

Description

After viewing Renaissance paintings on a trip to Italy in 1881, Renoir attempted to bring greater order and stability to Impressionism by merging flickering light effects with solid forms. He conveyed this new ambition in a series of paintings of nude bathers, a subject that preoccupied him from 1883 until his death in 1919. Avant-garde artists of the 20th century admired his ability to blend modernist and classicizing tendencies.
Bathers Playing with a Crab

Bathers Playing with a Crab

c. 1897

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

(French, 1841–1919)
France, 19th century

Visually Similar by AI

CMA Store

 (opens in new tab)
Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism
Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism
by Britany Salsbury, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings, The Cleveland Museum of Art, with contributions from Richard Thomson, Professor in History of Art, History of Art, Edinburgh College of Art, Aleksandra Bursac, PhD Candidate, University of Toronto, Claire White, Fellow, Director Studies, Girton College, Cambridge, and Gretchen Schultz, Professor, French and Francophone Studies, Brown University Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism is the first publication to explore Impressionist artist Edgar Degas’s representations of Parisian laundresses. These working-class women were a visible presence in the city, while washing, ironing, or carrying heavy baskets of clothing. Their job was among the most difficult, dangerous, and poorly paid at the time, forcing some to supplement their income through prostitution. The industry fascinated Degas throughout his long career, beginning in the 1850s and continuing until his final decade of work. The artworks from this series—revolutionary in their emphasis on women’s work, the strenuousness of such labor, and social class—were featured in Degas’s most significant exhibitions and praised by critics as epitomizing modernity. This richly illustrated publication accompanies an exhibition that contextualizes Degas’s series with paintings, drawings, and prints by his contemporaries—including Gustave Caillebotte, Berthe Morisot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec—as well as artists that he influenced and was influenced by, from Honoré Daumier to Pablo Picasso. Essays by an interdisciplinary range of scholars of art history, literature, and history examine major themes from the exhibition, revealing the widespread interest that Parisians of all social classes had in the topic of laundresses during the late nineteenth century. 242 pagesOctober 2023

Contact us

The information about this object, including provenance, may not be currently accurate. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about this object, please email collectionsdata@clevelandart.org.

To request more information about this object, study images, or bibliography, contact the Ingalls Library Reference Desk.

All images and data available through Open Access can be downloaded for free. For images not available through Open Access, a detail image, or any image with a color bar, request a digital file from Image Services.