After the Bath
Mary Cassatt began using pastel in the 1870s and continued to experiment with the medium throughout her career. This drawing depicts a mother and child, one of the artist's preferred subjects. Cassatt typically used the technique seen here, in which she finished her sitters' faces with a high degree of detail but rendered the rest of the composition in a much looser and sketchier style.
Details
- Palette
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Select a color to find related artworks.
- Medium
- pastel
- Dimensions
- sheet: height 0.66 m, width 1.0 m
- Department
- Drawings
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Gift of J. H. Wade
Art Genome Taxonomy
10 tags
Subject Matter
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Family Both · 99%
The Cleveland Museum of Art describes the subject as a mother and child, and the image visibly shows an adult woman closely supporting and looking toward a child.
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Bathers Both · 96%
The title identifies a bathing context, while the image shows a nude child surrounded by towels or bathing cloths.
Visual Qualities
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Bright and Vivid Colors Visual · 94%
The image is dominated by vivid green, orange, blue, yellow, and white pastel passages, with strong warm-cool contrasts.
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Dense Composition Visual · 89%
Overlapping figures, arms, cloths, and objects fill most of the broad horizontal sheet, producing a tightly packed arrangement.
Medium and Techniques
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Drawing Metadata · 99%
The museum classifies the work as a Drawing and lists it in the Drawings department.
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Pastel Both · 99%
The catalog identifies pastel as the medium, and the image shows layered, powdery colored marks characteristic of pastel.
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Work on Paper Metadata · 97%
The dimensions identify the support as a sheet, and the work is cataloged as a drawing.
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Large Brushstrokes/Loose Brushwork Both · 90%
The museum specifically characterizes the surrounding composition as loose and sketchy, a quality also visible in the abbreviated, directional pastel marks across the fabrics and background.
Time Periods
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1900 - 1917 Art Metadata · 99%
The catalog dates the work to 1901.
Geographic Regions
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American Art Metadata · 90%
Mary Cassatt is identified as American, and the place of origin is listed as America.
Source & rights
Mary Cassatt (American, 1844–1926). After the Bath. Cleveland Museum of Art.