The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 26, 2024

The Little Laundress

The Little Laundress

1896
(French, 1867–1947)
(French, 1858–1936)
(French, 1867–1939)
Image: 29 x 19.7 cm (11 7/16 x 7 3/4 in.); Sheet: 45.4 x 33.7 cm (17 7/8 x 13 1/4 in.)
© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Catalogue raisonné: Bouvet 40
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

Bonnard was commissioned to create this print by the renowned art dealer Ambroise Vollard for inclusion in his luxury print portfolio titled Album des peintres-graveurs.

Description

This print depicts one of the many women and girls who worked in the Parisian laundry industry during the late 19th century. Carrying a basket that nearly matches her own size, a small silhouetted figure makes her way down an empty street, either picking up or dropping off clothes to a client. Bonnard represented the scene with minimal detail, portraying the laundress as a dark silhouette in stark contrast to the light cobblestones of the street on which she walks.
  • ?-before 2005
    Samuel Josefowitz, Lausanne, Switzerland
    ?-2005
    (R.M Light & Co., Inc., Santa Barbara, CA, sold to Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley, Shaker Heights, OH)
    2005-2020
    Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley, Shaker Heights, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    2020
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Bouvet, Francis. Bonnard: The Complete Graphic Work. New York: Rizzoli, 1981. Mentioned: no. 40
    Chapin, Mary Weaver, and Heather Lemonedes Brown. Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis, Paris, 1889-1900. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2021. Reproduced: P. xi
    Salsbury, Britany. Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2023. Reproduced: p. 129, no.22
  • Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 8, 2023-January 14, 2024).
    Impressionism to Modernism: The Keithley Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 11, 2022-January 8, 2023).
    Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis, Paris, 1889–1900. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (co-organizer) (July 1-September 19, 2021).
  • {{cite web|title=The Little Laundress|url=false|author=Pierre Bonnard, Auguste Clot, Ambroise Vollard|year=1896|access-date=26 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2020.151