The Child's Bath

This is a painting by Mary Cassatt called "The Child's Bath" (1891-1892). The piece contains a woman washing her child's feet. The child is on her mother's lap while the mother rinses the feet in a bowl of water. The setting appears to be in a house, possibly middle-class, as evidenced by the simple clothing and decor. The emphasis of the painting is the mother and child and the close bond they share. This can be seen from the mother's close embrace with the child, with one arm snuggled around the child's body and the other arm gently holding the child's small foot. Cassatt draws such a loving portrait of a mother a child to appease to the popular thought of the 19th century, which valued the "cult of true womanhood," or the idea that a woman's proper place was at home being a nurturing mother/wife. Much like Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun's "Self-Portrait with her Daughter Julie," this piece resembles much of the Madonna and Child paintings seen in the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance. Also like Vigée-Lebrun, the child is wearing a toga or towel-like material, both of which associate back to simpler times of classical antiquity and conservative traditions . The incorporation of the bowl of water also played into Cassatt parroting the gender expectations of the 19th century. The water symbolizes purity, which was not only a characteristic women were expected to have, but it also enhances the idea of a mother and child's relationship as natural. Cassatt lived during a period where the women's movement was in effect. The ideals of the cult of true womanhood were being threatened and Cassatt's "The Child's Bath" was a way to calm such anxieties of social upheaval.