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The Bather

1889–90, carved 1894
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 774
Philadelphia native Stewardson considered "The Bather," his first and only life-size figure, a study in form. The realistic seated nude, free of symbolic content, elegantly arranges her hair. At the Paris Salon of 1890, Stewardson was awarded an honorable mention for his plaster model. After he drowned in a sailing accident off Newport, Rhode Island, in 1892, his father arranged for the sculpture to be translated to marble in Paris by the French sculptor Agathon Léonard. In 1895, perhaps at the suggestion of his son’s former teacher Thomas Eakins, the senior Stewardson also had a bronze made from the plaster cast. Both this bronze and a plaster sketch of the work attributed to Stewardson are in the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Bather
  • Artist: Edmund Austin Stewardson (1865–1892)
  • Date: 1889–90, carved 1894
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Marble
  • Dimensions: 46 1/4 x 23 x 15 in. (117.5 x 58.4 x 38.1 cm)
  • Credit Line: Gift of Thomas Stewardson, 1895
  • Object Number: 95.9
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

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