Mary Cassatt [W]as the only American to exhibit with the original Impressionist group. Like her friend Degas, she was a highly skilled draftsman who preferred unposed, asymmetrical compositions. In The Child's Bath, the circular shapes of the figures’ heads, the basin, and the pitcher, as well as the striped pattern of the woman’s dress animate the portrait of a woman bathing a child. Cassatt’s unusual vantage point (from above) as well as her choice of a female subject show her interest in Japanese woodblock prints, which had become extremely popular in France at the time.