Woman Ironing (also known as The Laundresses or Les Repasseuses) in the Musee d'Orsay is one of a series of four variations of this picture - with its two washerwomen, one yawning, the other ironing - which is part of a larger series of women in laundries that Degas began in 1869. Over the next 25 years or so, he continued to exploit this theme which he succeeded in varying by changing the pose, the setting, and above all the lighting (the play of light), which he diversified as much as possible by means of artificial illumination, transparencies, reflections from the washing lying flat or drying on cords from the ceiling.