In 1916 Jacques Lipchitz negotiated a contract with the well-known dealer Léonce Rosenberg and from then on could afford to employ a stone carver. He made his figures in clay and the carver translated them into limestone.

The Seated Bather represents again an important change and development in my cubism. In a sense, it marked a new phase
symptomatic of the free-standing cubist sculptures I did
between 1916 and the early 1920's.... Although it is extremely
compact, there is a greater use of twisting diagonals and
curvilinear forms suggesting a three-dimensional spiraling of
the figure on an axis. Here I began to abandon that rigid
vertical-horizontal aspect that marked the works of the preceding years.... It is also true, I think, that the Seated Bather
as a figure takes on a greater human presence. While it is still every way an organization of plastic masses and volumes, the
sense of humanity gives it a specific personality, a brooding
quality emphasized by the shadowed face framed in the heavy,
hanging locks of the hair. In this work I think I clearly
achieved the kind of poetry which I felt to be essential in the
total impact. (J. Lipchitz, op. cit., 1972, pp. 42 and 45)

Although seated, the cowled figure seems to be about to take a first step forward, to perhaps dance and unwind from its precise, coiled tension. Despite this, the color and texture of the smooth speckled stone suggests a votive, religious aura.