Maternal Caress

1890-1891

Mary Cassatt

Artist, American, 1844 - 1926

We look slightly down onto a young woman sitting in an upholstered chair and tightly hugging a nude, blond child in this vertical, colored print. Both have pale, peach-toned skin. The woman’s black hair is pulled back though a couple tendrils curl on her forehead. Her eyes are downcast and her pink lips parted. She wears a long, cream-white dress dotted with blush-pink, petal-like forms. One arm is under the baby’s chubby bottom and the other braces the child behind the shoulders. The baby wraps their arms around the woman’s neck so they are cheek to cheek. The chair sits in front of a bed with a boxy frame and a pillowy white mattress. The upholstery on the woman’s chair and the wallpaper behind her are patterned with coral-pink flowers and vines against butter yellow. The floor is also coral pink. A mark with an oval, or a mirrored C, over an uppercase M, is stamped in royal blue at the bottom center of the print. The sheet is inscribed with graphite across the right half of the bottom margin, “Edition de 25 épreuves Imprimée par l'artiste et M. Leroy Mary Cassatt.”

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    color drypoint and aquatint on laid paper

  • Credit Line

    Chester Dale Collection

  • Dimensions

    plate: 36.8 x 26.8 cm (14 1/2 x 10 9/16 in.)
    sheet: 43.5 x 30.3 cm (17 1/8 x 11 15/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1963.10.255

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Mathews and Shapiro 1989, no. 12, vi/vi

More About this Artwork

Article:  34 Artworks About Love at the National Gallery

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Artwork history & notes

Exhibition History

1936

  • Mary Cassatt, Baltimore Museum of Art, MD, 1936, no. 34.

1965

  • Graphic Arts from the Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965.

1967

  • Miss Mary Cassatt: Paintings and Graphic Arts, Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY, 1967.

1970

  • Mary Cassatt, 1844-1926, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970.

1998

  • Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman, The Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998-1999, no. 63, as Nude Child (shown only in Washington).

2014

  • Degas/Cassatt, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2014.

Bibliography

1979

  • Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Graphic Work. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979, no. 150, iii/iii.

1989

  • Mathews, Nancy Mowll, and Barbara Stern Shapiro. Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989, no. 12, vi/vi.

1996

  • Mathews, Nancy Mowll. Cassatt: A Retrospective. New York: H.L. Levin Associates, 1996, p. 170.

1998

  • Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman. Exh. cat. The Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1998-1999: no. 63.

2014

  • Jones, Kimberly A. Degas/Cassat. Exh. Cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2014: no. 68.

Inscriptions

lower right in graphite: Edition de 25 épreuves Imprimée par l'artiste et M. Leroy / Mary Cassatt

Wikidata ID

Q65511211

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