Laundry

Édouard Manet’s Laundry (1875) occupies a curious space in his oeuvre—it’s not as flashy as Olympia or as theatrically charged as Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, but it’s got this quiet insistence that makes you look twice. The painting, now tucked away in a private collection, shows a laundress at work, her back slightly bent, arms submerged in what we can assume is a basin of water. Manet’s brushwork here is looser than in his earlier, more controversial pieces, leaning into the Impressionist vibe that was starting to take hold, though he’d never fully commit to the label. There’s something almost offhand about the composition, like he caught the scene in passing, but the way the light hits the woman’s sleeve and the folds of the fabric tells you he’s still in full control.
Compared to Degas’ laundresses—who often seem worn down by labor—Manet’s feels less like a social commentary and more like a study in movement and texture. You can almost hear the slosh of water, the rhythmic scrubbing. Critics at the time might’ve dismissed it as trivial, just another domestic scene, but there’s a modernity to it, this unpretentious focus on everyday grind. The palette is muted, lots of whites and soft grays, with just a hint of color in the woman’s flushed cheeks, like Manet couldn’t resist a tiny jab of vitality. It’s not his most famous work, sure, but it’s one of those paintings that grows on you, the kind you notice more on the third or fourth look.
Oddly enough, Laundry doesn’t get the same decorative love as, say, Monet’s water lilies or Renoir’s dance scenes—maybe because it lacks the obvious prettiness. But in a modern interior, it’d hold its own, especially in a space that leans into raw, unfussy elegance. The subject’s universality helps; laundry’s one of those things that hasn’t changed much, even if the tech has. Manet’s take feels oddly contemporary, like it could’ve been painted yesterday, if yesterday involved bonnets and washboards. There’s a stubborn timelessness to it, though I’d hesitate to call it “eternal”—that’d be too neat, and Manet was never about neatness.