Lotte Laserstein met Traute Rose during the 1920s. A gifted athlete, Rose became the artist's tennis coach and, later, her favorite model, capable of holding difficult poses for an extended period of time. The two women remained close friends, even after Rose married and Laserstein moved to Scandinavia.

This painting is typical of the straightforward, sober, and unflattering style known as German realism. Although it features the life-size nude figure of a woman at her toilette-a venerable theme throughout Western and Asian art-Traute Washing exhibits none of the sensuality or grace generally associated with this subject, particularly as painted by male artists. Instead, Laserstein gives viewers her impression of the neue Frau (new woman): physically powerful and independent, clearly a real person rather than a goddess. Rose's connection with the world of the 1930s is evident from such touches as her blunt-cut, chin-length hair, several lank strands of which hang on one side of her face. She is also tied to reality by the well-worn bedroom slippers and dramatically cropped water basin at the lower edge of the canvas.