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We look slightly down onto a young woman sitting at a writing desk as she licks an envelope in this vertical, color print. A table folds down or extends from a tall secretary desk to our right. The blotter on the table and the woman’s long dress are both navy blue. The dress has a vaguely floral pattern in tan, and the jacket is open to reveal a vertically pleated, tan shirt beneath. The woman’s skin is pale peach. Her black hair is pulled back over dark brows and a delicate nose. She holds the open flap of the envelope to her mouth with both hands. The rest of the room is white with a few lines to indicate a corner and a chair. The artist signed the print under the lower right corner, “Mary Cassatt etat.” Another graphite inscription in the lower left corner of the sheet is indecipherable.

Mary Cassatt

The Letter, 1890-1891

Not on View

Medium

color drypoint and aquatint on laid paper

Dimensions

plate: 34.61 × 21.11 cm (13 5/8 × 8 5/16 in.)

sheet: 44.6 x 27.5 cm (17 9/16 x 10 13/16 in.)

Credit Line

Rosenwald Collection

Catalogue Raisonné

Mathews and Shapiro 1989, no. 8, ii/iv

Accession Number

1950.1.40

Artists / Makers

Mary Cassatt (artist) American, 1844 - 1926

Image Use

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Inscription

lower right in graphite: Mary Cassat / etat

Exhibition History

1950: Prints by Mary Cassatt, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1950.

1951: Mary Cassatt and her Parisian Friends, Pasadena Art Institute, CA, 1951, no. 39.

1962: A Generation of Draughtsmen, The University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, 1962, no. 27.

1965: Master Prints from the Rosenwald Collection, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1965, no. 111, repro.

1966: Prints 1800-1945, Minneapolis Institute of Arts; City Art Museum of St. Louis; and Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, San Francisco, 1966, no. 30.

1979: Prized Prints, The Grolier Club, New York, 1979.

1989: Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, 1989-1990, no. 8-II, repro.

Bibliography

1979: Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Graphic Work. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979, no. 146, ii/iii.

1989: Mathews, Nancy Mowll, and Barbara Stern Shapiro. Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989, no. 8, ii/iv.