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    Open today 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
    Admission is always free

    6th and Constitution Ave NW 
    Washington, DC 20565

    Ice Rink at the Sculpture Garden

    Step into a winter wonderland.

    Learn more

  • Exhibitions & Events

    • Exhibitions
    • Calendar
    • Kid-Friendly Events

    Featured exhibition:

    The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art

    Now on view

  • Art & Artists

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    • Artists
    • Stories
    • Games and Interactives
    • Educational Resources
    • Research

    Artle

    A refreshed experience for our puzzle game

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    Open today 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
    Admission is always free

    6th and Constitution Ave NW 
    Washington, DC 20565

    Ice Rink at the Sculpture Garden

    Step into a winter wonderland.

    Learn more

  • Exhibitions & Events

    • Exhibitions
    • Calendar
    • Kid-Friendly Events

    Featured exhibition:

    The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art

    Now on view

  • Art & Artists

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    • Artists
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    • Games and Interactives
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    Artle

    A refreshed experience for our puzzle game

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    3. Pierre Marbeau
    Provenance

    Pierre Marbeau

    French, 1901 - 1991

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    Artwork

    Two pale-skinned little girls sit back-to-back on a sandy beach, almost filling the width of this vertical painting. The girls wear matching pale, ice-blue pinafores over short sleeve, ocean-blue dresses. Both sit with their legs stretched in front of them and angled to our right. The girl closest to us, to our left, looks down at the denim-blue pail and wooden shovel she holds between her ankles. She holds the long-handled shovel in her near hand with the end inside the pail. She has a chubby, flushed, round face with blond hair and rosy arms and legs. She wears black shoes and appears to have a brown sock on her near leg but a dark blue sock on the other. Her companion sits just beyond her and to our right with her body turned away from us. Her wide-brimmed straw hat is trimmed with a tomato-red ribbon tied in a bow at the front. The hat hides her face, and her outstretched legs are encased in olive-green stockings. Her near hand reaches across her lap to grab the pail sitting on the far side of her legs. The beach meets the pale blue and aquamarine ocean in the upper third of the painting. A patch of strokes and daubs of dark blue and peach near the upper left and a tan wedge in the water to our right are painted loosely along the shoreline. Two white sailboats and a horizontal white dash with three dark blue dots drift on the water. The artist signed the lower right, “Mary Cassatt.”
    Mary Cassatt, Children Playing on the Beach, 1884, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.19

    Children Playing on the Beach

    Children Playing on the Beach

    Mary Cassatt · 1884 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1970.17.19

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