French artist Honore Daumier painted Laundresses returning from laundry boats on the Seine in around 1860. The painting, currently exhibited at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, was inspired by Daumier’s observations of laundresses while living on the Quai d’Anjou. Although he was primarily a painter and sculptor, Daumier often painted urban laborers under the Second Empire.
The painting depicts several women returning with baskets full of laundry from a boat on the Seine. Despite their load, one woman tenderly helps a child up the steps of the embankment. The painting symbolically contrasts their difficult lives with those who are better off across the river.
Two other versions of this painting exist: one is housed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and another is located at Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. Interestingly enough, these paintings differ slightly from each other.
