NML home > Walker Art Gallery > Collections > 19c > 'Woman ironing'

Our venues

World Museum Liverpool
Walker Art Gallery
Merseyside Maritime Museum
International Slavery Museum
National Conservation Centre
Lady Lever Art Gallery
Sudley House
Museum of Liverpool

19 century collection

Introduction
'The Death of Nelson'
'Linlithgow Palace'
'The Ruins of Holyrood Chapel'
'The Black Boy'
'Millie Smith'
'Isabella'
'Self-Portrait'
Study of Emma and Catherine for 'Pretty Baa Lambs'
'Napoleon crossing the Alps'
'Waiting'
'The Tinted Venus'
'The Stonebreaker'
'John and Georgina Naylor'
A study of 'Arthur Madox Brown, age nine months'
'The Hunted Slaves'
'Faithful unto death'
'The Murder'
'Elaine'
'Dante's Dream'
'Bust of Henry Wordsworth Longfellow'
'Leonora di Mantua'
'Portrait of Mrs Catherine Smith Gill'
'Elijah in the Wilderness'
'Athlete struggling with a python'
'And when did you last see your father?'
'One of the Family'
'A Street in Brittany'
'Friday'
'Dante and Beatrice'
'The Mower'
'Fantine'
'Samson'
'A summer night'
'The Promise'
'The funeral of Shelley'
'Woman ironing'
'Break-up of the ice on the Seine'
'Perseus and Andromeda'
'The punishment of lust'
'The sense of sight'
'Ophelia'

'Woman ironing', Edgar Degas, c.1890

There is a woman ironing, the sideways pose is very bold.The image is impressionistic, she has a profile, but no clearer facial features.

Oil on canvas, 80 x 63.5cm

Accession Number WAG6645

Degas's laundress pictures paralleled his more famous ballet dancer series. For both he studied the precise movements of women at work.

The art of Degas was that of a 'Naturalist', depicting what was considered vulgar - laundresses were commonly thought of as borderline prostitutes - in a way that was almost scientific.

A double viewpoint is used - looking straight at the woman's face and down at her board. Her outlined and cropped figure also indicate Degas's debts to both Japanese art and snapshot photography.

Purchased with the help of the National Art Collections Fund.