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A young boy with pale skin, wearing a burgundy-red suit and floppy hat, stands facing and looking at us with a gray terrier dog at his side in this vertical portrait painting. The boy has large, slate-blue eyes, rounded smooth cheeks, a small nose, and his pink bow lips are closed. His thick blond hair falls in waves across his forehead and down to his shoulders. His body is angled slightly to our right and he holds a riding crop with both hands in front of his body. The sheen on his burgundy-red jacket, and knee-length pants suggests they are velvet. A wide, lace collar comes to points on his chest. Lace cuffs peek out at his wrists, and the lower hem of his pants, around his knees, is edged with wide lace. A broad, slightly brighter ruby-red sash wraps around his waist and hangs by his left hip, on our right. His calves are covered in stockings of the same brighter red. His black shoes seem to be tied with a ribbon, but this area is loosely painted. His right hand, to our left, might brush the head of the dog sitting next to the boy’s leg. The dog has shiny, charcoal-gray fur and a black nose, ears, and eyes. The dog sits angled and looking off to our right. They are on a brick-red carpet with dashes of black that suggest a pattern, and an olive-green drape hangs behind them. The portrait is loosely painted throughout, but the brushstrokes are especially visible in the rug, background, and dog. The painting is inscribed near the lower right corner: “Eddy from Aunt Mary.”

Mary Cassatt

Eddy Cassatt (Edward Buchanan Cassatt), 1875

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 147.96 × 109.86 cm (58 1/4 × 43 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Gift from the Family of Col. Edward Buchanan Cassatt

Accession Number

2015.41.1

Artists / Makers

Mary Cassatt (painter) American, 1844 - 1926

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

lower left: Eddy / from / Aunt Mary

Provenance

The sitter's father, and the artist's brother, Alexander Johnston Cassatt [1839-1906], Philadelphia; gift to his granddaughter, and the artist's grandniece, Lois Buchanan Cassatt Thayer [1894-1977], Haverford, Pennsylvania;[1] gift, by 1954, to her daughter, and the artist's great-grandniece, Julie Thayer Iselin Vehr, Washington, D.C., and Middleburg, Virginia;[2] gift 2015 to NGA.

[1] This granddaughter was the sitter's daughter by his first wife, Emily Louise Phillips.

[2] Information about the painting's descent in the sitter's family was provided by Mrs. Vehr.

Associated Names

Cassatt, Alexander Johnston
Thayer, Lois Buchanan Cassatt
Vehr, Julie Thayer

Exhibition History

1895: Exposition of Paintings, Pastels and Etchings by Miss Mary Cassatt, Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York, 1895, no. 29, as Enfant au Chien.

1960: Mary Cassatt, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1960, as Eddy in Red Velvet (Edward Buchanan Cassatt).

1979: Miss Mary Cassatt, Impressionist from Pennsylvania, 1844-1926, Portland Museum of Art, Maine, 1979.

Bibliography

1966: Sweet, Frederick A. Miss Mary Cassatt, Impressionist of Philadelphia. Norman, Oklahoma, 1966: 24.

1970: Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oils, Pastels, Watercolors, and Drawings. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1970, p. 32, no. 12.

1975: Hale, Nancy. Mary Cassatt. Garden City, New York, 1975: 48-49, as Portrait of Eddie.

1980: Love, Richard H. Cassatt: The Independent. Chicago, 1980: 9, 17 n. 10.

1982: Rubinstein, Charlotte Streifer. American Women Artists from Early Indian Times to the Present. New York and Boston, 1982: 131.

1987: Mathews, Nancy Mowll. Mary Cassatt. New York, 1987: 24, 35, repro.

1991: Wiser, William. The Great Good Place: American Expatriate Women in Paris. New York, 1991: 38, as Portrait of Edward.

1998: Pollock, Griselda. Mary Cassatt: Painter of Modern Women. New York, 1998: 112.