Cézanne, a painter whom other painters admired but the public ignored, received his first one-man show at Vollard's gallery in 1895.  Vollard then convinced Cézanne to contribute The Bathers to his forthcoming album of original prints, even though Cézanne's interest in printmaking had begun and ended with five trial etchings in 1873.

Cézanne drew the outlines of The Bathers on a lithographic stone, but left the complicated process  of printing it in color to Auguste Clot, who was guided by a black-and-white proof that Cézanne had watercolored by hand.