A Portrait of the Artist's Mother

c. 1889-1890

Mary Cassatt

Artist, American, 1844 - 1926

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    color softground etching and aquatint on laid paper

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Dimensions

    plate: 25.24 × 17.94 cm (9 15/16 × 7 1/16 in.)
    sheet: 35.2 x 21 cm (13 7/8 x 8 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1946.21.90

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Mathews and Shapiro 1989, no. 4, iv/iv


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Robert Hartshorne (1866-1927), New Jersey (Lugt 2215b); (sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 23 January 1946, lot 68); Lessing J. Rosenwald, Jenkintown, PA; acquired 1946 by the National Gallery of Art

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1946

  • New Acquisitions in the Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1946.

1950

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

1958

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

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.

1967

  • Miss Mary Cassatt: Paintings and Graphic Arts, Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY, 1967.

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. 4-IV, repro.

1995

  • Prints by James McNeill Whistler and His Contemporaries, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1995.

2025

  • Mary Cassatt at Work, Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young, Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 2024-2025 (shown only in San Francisco), no repro.

Bibliography

1979

  • Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Graphic Work. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979, no. 122, vi/vii.

1989

  • Mathews, Nancy Mowll, and Barbara Stern Shapiro. Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989, no. 4, iv/iv.

1996

  • Mathews, Nancy Mowll. Cassatt: A Retrospective. New York: H.L. Levin Associates, 1996, p. 165.

2024

  • Thompson, Jennifer A. and Garber, Laurel, editors. Mary Cassatt at Work. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young, Legion of Honor, San Francisco; Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2024: 288.

Inscriptions

recto: below image, at right, in graphite: Mary Cassatt; along bottom edge, in graphite, in later hand: 2 NY 609 H. H. moa; verso: at lower right, in graphite, in later hand: 13

Markings

recto: none; verso: Robert Hartshorne (Lugt 2215b)

Watermarks

ANDERLEY

Wikidata ID

Q65081041


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