On July 6, 1891, Edgar Degas wrote to his friend Evariste de Valernes, �I am hoping to do a suite of lithographs, a first series of nude women at their toilette and a second on nude dancers.� The group of lithographs that emerged included Apr�s le Bain III (After the Bath III), which belongs to the artist�s final great series of lithographs depicting a female nude drying herself after bathing. Like Monet, Degas worked in series and produced Apr�s le Bain III by transferring to another, larger stone an impression of the nude figure in the final state of Apr�s le Bain II, also from 1891. The main figure of the standing woman from the earlier print was reworked through subsequent passages of transfers and direct plate work, while Degas added a rounded back to the chaise at right and, most notably, a second female figure assisting the bather. Seen from the back, the woman�s spine is curving so that her head tilts toward the floor and her hair falls down the line of her bent arm, which is busy drying her hip. In the reworking of the design on the lithographic stone, the figure not only grew larger in scale, but also grainier in tonal conception: the female body seems to dissolve into her own softness, conveyed with extreme sfumato. In this respect, the print relates closely to experimental lithographs by Degas�s contemporary Eug�ne Carri�re, similarly characterized by absence of firm delineation. (Furio Rinaldi, 2022)