Edgar Degas (1834-1917 )Nude woman standing at her toilet. 1891-1892. Lithograph (transfer from a monotype, lithographic pencil and scraper). 235 x 328 [262 x 375]. Delteil 65; Reed-Shapiro 61 (vi/vi). A very fine and fresh proof on ivory vellum, signed in pencil. "The bather lithographs were Degas's last effort in printmaking. [...] In the 1950s, E. Kornfeld found a relatively large number of impressions of some of the bather lithographs in the hands of Maurice Exsteens, who had acquired them from his father-in-law, the Parisian collector and publisher Gustave Pellet (1859-1919). Pellet had evidently obtained them some time between 1900 and 1910 and is said to have had them signed by Degas. [...] Uncertainties remain about some of the techniques, for Degas and his printer employed unusual combinations of materials and processes: greasy drawings on celluloid, coated transfer papers that produced unexpected granular patches, photographic transfer, and direct work on the stone. As a group the bather lithographs vividly illustrate Degas's inventive, and sometimes unique, working methods." (Sue Welsh Reed and Barbara Stern Shapiro, eds., Edgar Degas, The Painter as Printmaker (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1984), p. 220).