Titian, Manet, Degas: Notes on the Female Nude in Painting

Abstract

This article proposes an interpretation of After The Bath (1896, oil on canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art) in the light of its relationship with tradition, particularly with Venus of Urbino, by Titian (1538, oil on canvas, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence), and Olympia, by Édouard Manet (1863, oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay, Paris). The painting is tackled in relation to the iconography of the toilette of Venus, but also its references to erotic postcards of Degas’s times.