Degas experimented continuously with most of the techniques in which he worked. He was especially innovative in his use of transfer techniques, creating monotypes, transfer lithographs and counterproofs. The present work is one of three counterproofs he produced from the pastel Femme au bain (Lemoisne, vol. III, no. 1310). In the original work the bather faces the viewer's right. In making the counterproof, the artist dampens a blank sheet and runs it through a press holding the original pastel. Degas may have produced counterproofs during the process in which his colleur Père Lézin laid down his finished pastels. A ghostly image seen in reverse is the result, to which the artist frequently made further additions in pastel or chalk.

In the sequence of counterproofs based on Femme au bain Degas explores different possibilites inherent in the original composition. Degas reworked the present counterproof with pastel to a greater extent than in the other two versions. He enlarged and deepened the space surrounding the bather. He extended the drapery and the towel above the figure, and defined more clearly the outlines of the tub against the floor. The present work is the only version in which the shadow cast by the bather's right leg falls softly and naturally along the inside of the tub; in the pastel and the other two counterproofs the effect is harsher and more rigid. While these adjustments contribute to a more precise rendering of the figure in space, the artist sustains the atmospheric effect of light filtering through the room by contrasting the vibrant hues of his pastels with the whiteness of the sheet.