In 1912, the time of this painting, Wouters had been staying in Paris, where he discovered the colours of Cézanne and Matisse, Monet's landscapes, and Renoir's women.

[3] The subject of laundresses and washerwomen attracted the French Impressionist painters who had begun to take an interest in the working lives of ordinary people.

Both contemporary social concerns as well as themes of industrial modernity had informed such works in the decades preceding Wouter's The Ironer.

George Washington Lambert had also produced The Laundresses about 1901[7] as well as La Blanchisseuse (The French Landlady) in the same year but without the expressive use of colour.

In the same year as De strijkster, Australian Vida Lahey produced a narrative painting of the domestic weekly washing routine which at the time, was normally done on Mondays.