The impressionists moved away from studio set-pieces towards scenes of everyday life. They painted in the open air of outings with friends and sailing trips on the river; and of women bathing to capture private moments of their ( La Toilette).
Edgar Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec used women's private dressing rooms to study their natural movements as they groomed and washed themselves. Degas, ( the Tub,) has the model crouching down in a shallow tub washing herself with a sponge.
Toulouse-Lautrec, (La Toilette ) also known as ( Rousse ) appears to have the same red-headed model that Degas used. She is stripped to the waist sitting on a towel or sheet just before or after bathing, in the background there are chairs and a bathtub. Lautrec with his easy access to the salons and dressing rooms was a close observer of the female toilette as Degas remarked after looking around an exhibition of Lautrec's work. "Well Lautrec, I see you are one of us".
Renoir, ( The Blonde Bather ) a painting of Aline Chariot shows the whiteness of her skin bathed in soft sunlight. ( Nude in the sunlight ) this work was shown in the second impressionist exhibition show in 1876.
Manet, ( The Bath ) painted in 1878 goes along in the same theme as the other La Toilette painting as the woman sponges her self down in a shallow tub.
There is a simple sketch by Toulouse-Lautrec called ( Woman pulling on her Stockings ) I have done a study of this, by painting on ribbed glass. It is called ( La Toilette of Angela Jones )...................
