Fernando Botero describes himself as a “post-abstract realist” who paints memories in a realist style. His canvases are filled with large, voluminous people from his native country Colombia in everyday scenarios. Yet Botero thinks of the voluptuous bodies as thin. “I expand my characters’ bodies because I want them to become sensual”.
There are clear historical references in his work. In the beginning of the 1950s Botero abandoned a career as a matador and traveled to Europe. In Florence and Madrid he became consumed by the renaissance period and copied old masters such as Goya, Velásquez, Uccello and della Francesca.

His artistic breakthrough came a few years later in the 1960s when Botero was living in New York. It was here that he exhibited the now iconic pieces Mona Lisa (1961) and La familia presidencial (The Presidential Family) (1967). It was also now that Botero established the painterly style that became his trademark, and which has even been given a proper name - ‘boterismo’.

The work in the auction, El cuarto de baño, was included in Moderna Museet’s Botero exhibition (29th September 2001 – 13th January 2002), which was produced in close collaboration between the museum's then director David Elliott and the artist himself.