Mindful Housework Meditation with "The Laundress"

[wind chimes] What if a chore could be transformed into a quiet moment of presence and dignity? In The Laundress, artist Jean-Baptiste Greuze hasn't just focused on what the main figure is doing, but how she's doing it.

Try to picture it now in your mind.

A young laundress sits alone in a room on a low makeshift wooden stool.

She's in profile, but gently turns her head to the left to look out at us, challenging us with her blue eyes.

She wrings out the water from a white piece of fabric into an earthen basin on the floor.

The water squeezes out from the material and her hands.

[water drips] It drips and trickles into the basin below.

Try to hear it.

Even the way the fabric's been painted evokes a sense of dampness in my hands.

The details of the water are painted with creamy brush strokes of white and blue paint that appear wet, too.

There's a lot of fabric in the painting.

The layered drapery of the laundress' clothing overflows here, including a pink and yellow striped skirt, likely over a petticoat, a light blue tailored robe or gown with layered sleeves, a white apron, a long white kerchief worn over her shoulders and neckline, and her head topped with a white mob cap tied with a pink ribbon to cover her hair.

In the bottom left sits a heap of white fabric, perhaps next to be washed.

In the opposite corner at top right, a couple other items, one with details of a striped blue trim and the other like a large sheet, are draped over what appears to be a clothesline.

In fact, the entire setting is rather cluttered with the tools and materials related to doing laundry.

Behind the figure, a woven basket stuffed with sticks or tools just about tips over.

A gleaming pear-shaped pewter kettle, or a marabout, used for boiling water, sits atop a small wooden table on the floor.

Earthenware and copper pots are haphazardly stacked on the wooden cabinet behind her.

Wooden paddles known as beach beetles, used for beating wet linen to remove dirt, are strewn across the bottom left corner of the floor like an afterthought.

Emphasizing the mess, even the stucco on the wall in the top left corner has worn off, exposing the brick masonry underneath.

Washing laundry in the 18th century was slow and laborious.

It would take days to fully wash and dry clothing, much of that time spent doing repetitive and very physical tasks.

Eight hours filling and draining a pot with soda ash and hot water, nine hours of soaking it in clean hot water, hours at the riverside beating out the dirt, three days hanging to dry.

A far cry from our automated washer dryers today.

Those who could afford it would send their clothing and bedding to be cleaned by a laundress, like the fictional character in our painting.