Femme nue debout à sa toilette Degas distinguished himself in the world of engraving for his technical explorations about the different possibilities offered by this technique and for his originality and manner of composing the subjects he approached. From a technical point of view, Degas used all possible types of processes: etching, dry point, soft varnish, aquatint, lithography, monotype and finally heliogravure. This theme of depicting women in their intimacy was one of the artist's favorite subjects. He repeated this scene with different settings, but always giving the main focus to the figure and her movement – bent with her hair free and a breast glimpsed in the woman's prone posture, concentrated in the ritual of her toilette. Female subjects, as well as depiction of ballerinas, were always the main focus of his interest. Degas was a great collector, and bought prints, etchings and paintings with exquisite taste. We can mention some of his favorite artists: Géricault, Delacroix, Ingres whom he admired so much, as well as his friends Manet, Renoir, Mary Cassatt, Suzanne Valadon, Pissarro and Sisley. He kept about 800 lithographs by Daumier and would often say he was thinking of arranging them in a museum with a selection of his works. Unfortunately, the project was never realized; considering the very high artistic value of this collection, it would have made it possible to safeguard an important heritage that he had carefully selected. He did not produce a large number of etchings, probably because of the minute attention to detail and a painstaking approach which often held back his production in this area in terms of execution. Nevertheless, his enthusiasm for graphic art always remained intact, evidenced by the long series of monotypes he produced, so much so that at the dawn of his 72nd year he declared: "If I had to relive my life, I would devote myself to engravings, in black and white."