The Bather

Jean-François Millet

National Gallery of Art

A nude, pale-skinned woman sits on a grassy bank and extends one leg into the water in this loosely painted, horizontal composition. Her small breasts are bare, and the arm we see has some muscular definition. At the center of the painting, the woman’s body is angled to our left, and she looks down in that direction. Her skin is pale on her torso and upper arms and legs and deepens to reddish brown on her face, hands, and lower legs. Her hands are planted by her hips, and her left knee is sharply bent to support her weight near the water’s edge. Her other leg reaches into the water up to the knee. Tall grasses around her are loosely painted as is a golden brown hill that nearly reaches the top edge of the panel. The silhouette of a cow is outlined against the sliver of pale blue sky in the uppermost sixth of the painting. The artist signed the lower right corner, “JF Millet.”