The Little Laundress

Pierre Bonnard's engaging portrayal of a young laundry worker hauling her heavy basket of clothing along a deserted Parisian street belies the often harsh reality of child labor at the end of the nineteenth century. By that time, some one fifth of the city's working population was engaged in the laundry industry. Most of the workers were women and girls. Influenced in part by Japanese woodcuts, Bonnard presents the subject from an unusually high vantage point, emphasizing the print's flattened perspective, angular design, and bold colors over descriptive details.