Frederick Arthur Bridgman (American, 1847-1928). After the bath, Cairo, 1882. Oil on canvas. 25 x 20 inches (63.5 x 50.8...

Description

Frederick Arthur Bridgman (American, 1847-1928)
After the bath, Cairo, 1882
Oil on canvas
25 x 20 inches (63.5 x 50.8 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: F A Bridgman / 1882

PROVENANCE:
The artist, at least until 1885;
D.B. Hatch;
Private collection;
Private collection, Dallas, Texas, inherited from the above;
Private collection, Dallas, Texas, gift from the above, 2022.

EXHIBITED:
(Possibly) Salon, Paris, 1882, no. 357 (as Le Bain en famille, interieur, au Cairo);
(Probably) National Academy of Design, New York, autumn annual, 1885, no. 457 (as After the Bath, Cairo);
Interstate Industrial Exposition, Chicago, Illinois, 1885 (as After the Bath, Cairo).

We wish to thank Ilene Susan Fort, Ph.D., F. A. Bridgman authority and Curator Emerita, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, for confirming the authenticity of this painting and preparing the following essay:

Après le bain, Cairo is an intriguing painting in Bridgman's oeuvre.

Ever since the early nineteenth century when Ingres created his harem bath scenes, Orientalist painters have favored exotic bath scenes because they permitted the Western male to enjoy the beauty and sensuality of the nude body of Eastern women. The American Frederick A. Bridgman produced few of these mythic baths and "after the bath" scenes during his long career; several of his bath interiors were actually of a child being washed in a tub. One reason for this was the puritanical culture that still prevailed in the United States, as indicated by the rejection the artist experienced when he tried to exhibit in a late 1870s New York annual a painting with an Eastern woman attired in a revealing diaphanous costume. Après le bain, Cairo, 1882, is perhaps his earliest exception. Yet, Bridgman's presentation of the nude woman from the back does indicate his reluctance to expose her private parts.

During the previous decade, Bridgman presented figures in dark interiors that were more staged presentations before black backdrops. By the mid-1880s, the artist had become fascinated with natural sunlight so illuminated his interiors and often moved his narratives to outdoor settings. His frequent inclusion of a window with a view of the sunny outdoors demonstrated this fascination with natural light, here evidenced by the small aperture on the wall of Après le bain, Cairo. Although the shadowy quality of this scene relates to his 1870s interiors, the room is not cast in the even staged lighting of the earlier ones. The painting is transitional in another way: Bridgman had not yet established his standard way of posing reclining figures, as exemplified by the figure on the bed, who is wrapped in a cloth in a manner that does not appear again in Bridgman's paintings.

Après le bain, Cairo does demonstrate Bridgman's masterly draughtsmanship as well as the beginning of his loose, exuberant, impressionistic handling in the fabric details of the textiles and in the view through the window.




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