In the collection of Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia — check current display status with the museum.
FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG
A woman washes linen in a flower-filled garden. A child to her right, as if eager to help, tugs at the pail of suds. Washerwomen were popular figures in 19th-century art and literature. Manet's good friend Émile Zola, for example, described their tough lives in his novels. But this depiction is idyllic. Flashes of white paint —offset by grays and blues—become sunlight on the drying fabric. After the jury of the French Salon, the annual state art exhibition, rejected this painting, Manet exhibited it independently.
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir — Young Mother (Jeune mère)
Camille Pissarro — A Washerwoman at Eragny
Edgar Degas — Woman Ironing
Pierre-Auguste Renoir — Promenade (La Promenade)
Edouard Manet — The Monet Family in Their Garden at Argenteu