Room 13 · The Child's Bath

The story of this room

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Leave the quiet card game behind and open the next door. Suddenly you are standing very close. Leo takes half a step back. I think we walked right into someone's room, he says. It feels as if we are looking down over their shoulders.

A woman holds a small child on her lap and washes the child's feet in a basin. Both of them are looking down at the same spot, the water. Look at the lower middle of the canvas. Her hand wraps around one small foot. You can count the toes just above the surface.

Now go hunting for patterns. Her dress is striped in green, lavender and white. A red patterned rug covers the floor. Sprigs of flowers are scattered over the green background behind them. Even the white pitcher in the lower right has a pink flower painted on it. Leo starts copying the stripes into his notebook, then gives up and laughs. Too many patterns, he says. My silverpoint can't keep up.

All that pattern, and the steep view from above, make the floor seem to tip up like a wall. The Art Institute of Chicago links this flattened look to Mary Cassatt's close study of Japanese woodblock prints in the 1890s.

Cassatt was born in Pennsylvania and built her career in Paris. She was invited to exhibit with the original group of French Impressionists. Over time she became known for everyday moments between women and children, seen from very near.

She painted this in 1893. That same year it was listed first in the catalogue of her exhibition at the Durand-Ruel gallery in Paris. In 1910 the Art Institute of Chicago bought it, the first work by Cassatt to enter the museum's collection.

Before you go, check the lower left corner. Her signature is written there in dark paint, tucked into the pattern of the rug.

The next room has no people in it at all. Just a pond, floating flowers, and the sky reflected in the water.

5 places to look closer

Begin with the two heads. The woman and the child are looking at the same spot: the feet in the water. Their faces almost touch, and both have rosy cheeks. We can't tell whether the woman is the mother or someone else who looks after the child, but the painting makes clear how close they are.

Zoom into the basin. The woman's hand wraps around the child's small foot. Each toe is outlined in a thin reddish line. The water is just a few strokes of bluish gray.

Now look at the hands on the child's stomach. The woman's left hand holds the girl steady. Next to it, the child presses her left hand into the striped dress over the woman's knee. A large hand and a small hand sit side by side, and you can see at once who is leaning on whom.

Move to the white pitcher at the lower right. A gold line runs around the rim and handle, and pink flowers with blue leaves decorate the body. The bottom edge of the painting cuts the pitcher off. Boldly cropping objects at the edge was a device Cassatt had seen again and again in Japanese prints.

Zoom into the rug at the lower left. Red and olive bands cross each other in a diamond pattern. Because we are looking down from above, the floor seems to stand up like a wall instead of lying flat. Painted right on top of the pattern, in dark strokes, is the signature Mary Cassatt.