Degas tended to isolate nude female figures in order to bring forth the intimacy through their movements. These figures’ ignorance of being observed in their private moments has been interpreted as demonstrating Degas’ voyeuristic perspective as a man gaining sexual pleasures from the act of peeking. In contrast, the nude children in Cassatt's works are accompanied by an adult caring for their children. Degas utilized the hovering angle of vision to suggest “the effect of peering,” while Cassatt's utilization of such technique with a contrast of the solidity of the figures draws the audience's attention mainly to the actions of the mother and child; by doing so, Cassatt was able to achieve emotional monumentality. Comparison with Japanese woodcuts Cassatt was struck by the Japanese ukiyo-e woodcut prints exhibited at the Beaux-Arts Academy in Paris in 1890, three years before painting The Child's Bath. Cassatt was drawn to the simplicity and clarity of the Japanese art, and the skillful use of blocks of color, such as the c.1801 print "Woman Washing a Baby in a Tub" or by Kitagawa Utamaro. Not only did Utamaro's techniques speak to Cassatt, his depiction of the mother and child relationship, conveying intimacy and sympathy, also inspired her. She worked on a series of prints inspired by the Japanese works in the next few years, with cropped subjects, a flattened perspective and decorative patterns. This 1893 painting can be viewed as a culmination of that work. Like her previous works, the composition of The Child’s Bath resembles the shape of Japanese prints by utilizing an “extended vertical format” along with the long straight limbs of the figures. Additionally, the seeing-from-above perspective which was used widely in Japanese art is also prominent in Cassatt's painting. Provenance During the late 1880s to 1890s, France favored domestic artists, and this made Cassatt feel excluded, prompting her to turn her attention back to her native country, the United States. Even though she was initially met with ambivalence from critics, the assistance of Paul Durand-Ruel was able to assure her success and status as an American artist. The artist sold the painting to Durand-Ruel and it was exhibited at the Durand-Ruel gallery in Paris in late 1893 under the title La Toilette de l'Enfant. It was sold to Connecticut industrialist and art collector Harris Whittemore in 1894, but lent back to Durand-Ruel for an exhibition at their New York gallery in