The Letter

1890-1891

Mary Cassatt

Artist, American, 1844 - 1926

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 royal blue. The dress has a vaguely floral pattern in the cream-white of the paper, and the jacket is open to reveal a vertically pleated, pale pink shirt beneath. The woman’s skin is also the color of the paper. 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. A piece of white paper lies on the desktop in front of her. She sits in a brown chair, and the wallpaper of the room is patterned with green leaves and muted pink flowers against a white background. The artist signed the work with her initials in graphite in the bottom left, “MC.”

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    color drypoint and aquatint

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Dimensions

    plate: 36.6 x 22.6 cm (14 7/16 x 8 7/8 in.)
    sheet: 47.7 x 30.8 cm (18 3/4 x 12 1/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1943.3.2763

  • Catalogue Raisonné

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

Artwork history & notes

Exhibition History

1948

  • American Graphic Art from the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948.

1956

  • 4,000 Years of Modern Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, MD; Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, NY; Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA; and Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, 1956-1957.

1958

  • Color Etchings and Aquatints by Mary Cassatt, Ogunquit Museum, ME, 1958.

1962

  • Paintings, Drawings, and Graphic Works by Manet, Degas, Berthe Morisot, and Mary Cassatt, The Baltimore Museum of Art, 1962, no. 136.

  • Wilson College, Chambersburg, PA, 1962, no cat.

1963

  • Prints and Drawings by Mary Cassatt, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1963.

1964

  • Prints by Mary Cassatt, organized by the Smithsonian Travelling Exhibition Service and circulated to 10 venues (Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY; Norton Gallery & School of Art, Palm Beach, FL; University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI; Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS; Charles & Emma Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH; Columbus Gallery of Fine Art, Columbus, OH; Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA; and A.D. White Museum of Art at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY), 1964-1965.

1965

  • Paintings and Sculpture by Americans of Our Times, Ogunquit Museum of Art, ME, 1965.

1971

  • An Impressionist View on Paper - from the Lessing Rosenwald Collection of the National Gallery, Washington, D.C, Art Gallery at the University of Notre Dame, IN, 1971, no. 10.

1973

  • Mary Cassatt, 1844-1926, Newport Harbour Art Museum, Newport Beach, CA; Santa Barbara Museum, CA, 1973-1974.

  • Whistler, Cassatt and Hassam: three American printmakers, Rutgers University Art Gallery, New Brunswick, NJ, 1973.

2006

  • Women in Impressionism: from Mythical Feminine to Modern Woman, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2006 - 2007.

Bibliography

1979

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

1989

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

1995

  • Costantino, Maria. Mary Cassatt. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1995, p. 67, no. 57.

2006

  • Søndergaard, Sidsel Maria. Women in Impressionism: from Mythical Feminine to Modern Woman. Exh. cat. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, 2006-2007. Milan, 2006, no. 9.

Watermarks

PL BAS

Wikidata ID

Q64960374

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