The Coiffure

1890-1891

Mary Cassatt

Artist, American, 1844 - 1926

Nude from the waist up, a woman gathers her hair in her raised hands as she sits before a mirror in this vertical 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 dark hair hanging beside one cheek is reflected in the mirror. Her lower body is wrapped in a voluminous cloth as she leans forward on a 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 a light gray wall in front of the woman but the wall to our left, past her shoulders, is blank. A few inscribed lines suggest a floral pattern on the floor beneath her bare feet. The artist signed the work in graphite under the lower right corner, “Mary Cassatt.”

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    drypoint and aquatint in black

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Dimensions

    plate: 36.51 × 26.67 cm (14 3/8 × 10 1/2 in.)
    sheet: 41.2 x 27 cm (16 1/4 x 10 5/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1946.21.76

  • Catalogue Raisonné

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


Artwork history & notes

Exhibition History

1948

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

1950

  • Prints by Mary Cassatt. Rosenwald Collection and gift of Miss Elisabeth Achelis, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1950.

1962

  • A Generation of Draughtsmen, The University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, 1962, no. 26 (as Le Toilette), repro.

1989

  • Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamston, MA, 1989-1990, no. 14-II, 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, ii/v.

Inscriptions

lower right in graphite: Mary Cassatt

Wikidata ID

Q65081004


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