The Coiffure

1890-1891

Mary Cassatt

Artist, American, 1844 - 1926

A pale-skinned woman, nude from the waist up, gathers her hair in her raised hands as she sits before a mirror in this vertical, colored print. The large mirror is to our right, and the woman’s body is mostly turned away from us. Her head is bowed but a loose tendril of black hair hanging beside one cheek is reflected in the mirror. Her lower body is wrapped in a voluminous pale cloth as she leans forward on a white, curved, upholstered armchair. Her facial features, the contours of her body, and the folds of the towel are all delineated with thin black strokes. The mirror is set into the dark gray wall in front of the woman but the wall to our left, past her shoulders, is blank. The floor has a gray floral pattern against white.

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    color drypoint and aquatint

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Dimensions

    plate: 36.51 × 26.67 cm (14 3/8 × 10 1/2 in.)
    sheet: 48 x 31.6 cm (18 7/8 x 12 7/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1943.3.2745

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Mathews and Shapiro 1989, no. 14, iii/v


Artwork history & notes

Exhibition History

1950

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

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. 14-III, repro.

Bibliography

1979

  • Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Graphic Work. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979, no. 152, ii/iv.

1989

  • Mathews, Nancy Mowll, and Barbara Stern Shapiro. Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989, no. 14, iii/v.

1991

  • Wadley, Nicholas. Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Drawing. London: Laurence King, 1991, p. 41, fig. 87.

Wikidata ID

Q64960340


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