The Child's Bath by Mary Cassatt

The Child's Bath by Mary Cassatt, painted in 1893, demonstrates Mary Cassatt's increased interest in Japanese art in her later career. Cassatt admired Utamaro, a late 18th-century ukiyo-e master who was renowned for his portrayal of the private lives of women going about their daily activities.

Mary Cassatt's The Child's Bath (oil on canvas, 39-1/2x26 inches) is part of the Robert A. Waller Fund at The Art Institute of Chicago.

In The Child's Bath, Mary Cassatt adapted elements of the Japanese aesthetic -- including asymmetrical composition, flattened space, areas of pattern, and steep perspective -- to a Western image of maternal care.

For more on Impressionist paintings, artists, and art history, see:

• Impressionism
• Vincent van Gogh
• Claude Monet

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Debra N. Mancoff, Ph.D., is an art historian and lecturer and the author of numerous books on nineteenth-century European and American paintings. She is a scholar in residence at the Newberry Library and an adjunct associate professor and adjunct lecturer at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.