Footnotes

We are grateful to Professor Theodore Reff for his assistance in cataloguing this work.

Provenance
The artist's estate; their sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 8 April 1919, lot 250.
Anon. sale, Christie's, New York, 11 November 1987, lot 108.
Jason McCoy, New York & David Grob, London, no. 256 (acquired jointly at the above sale).
Private collection, Italy (acquired from the above through Galerie Artis, Monaco, in July 1988).
Private collection, Europe; their sale, Christie's, London, 8 February 2001, lot 414.
Private collection, Rome.

Exhibited
Pisa, Palazzo Blu, Toulouse-Lautrec, Luci e ombre di Montmartre, 16 October 2015 – 14 February 2016, no. 376.

Literature
A. Wofsy (ed.), Degas's Atelier at Auction, Paintings, Pastels & Drawings, Sales III & IV – 1919, San Francisco, 1989 (illustrated Sale III, no. 250).
F. Marinelli, 'La mostra su Toulouse-Lautrec a Pisa', in Il Post, 5 November 2015 (illustrated).

Depicting a toilette scene, Femme nue s'essuyant showcases Edgar Degas' superb anatomical draughtsmanship. The female nude was a subject which preoccupied Degas throughout his career, as it provided a means to examine the physical form of the body, stripped to its fundamental essence. Interested in conveying the everyday awkwardness of real life, the routine practice of a woman drying herself after bathing was a theme Degas engaged with throughout the 1880s and 1890s. As Jill DeVonyar and Richard Kendall have pointed out: 'only his images of the female bathers approached the dancers in sustained originality and commitment' (J. DeVonyar & R. Kendall, Degas and the Dance, exh. cat., Detroit, 2002, p. 231).

Viewed from the side, as if unaware of the viewer's gaze, the woman's body is twisted in a dynamic movement as she leans forward to dry her ankle. Depicted during a private moment and removed from the outside world, the nude is drawn with a spontaneity and assurance characteristic of Degas' most accomplished drawings. The artist's rendering of bathers is a universal ode to the female form without accoutrement – not odalisque in portrayal, his subjects are absorbed entirely in their everyday tasks, and are therefore beautifully relatable. The artist reveals the gentle curves of the woman's back and shoulders through the immediacy of charcoal. The ability to distil the essence of a subject through the simple consideration of line is captured evocatively.