The Coiffure

1891

Mary Cassatt

Artist, American, 1844 - 1926

Mary Cassatt

Drawn with black crayon and silvery graphite on cream-colored paper, a woman, nude from the waist up, gathers her hair in her raised hands as she sits before a mirror in this vertical composition. The large mirror is to our left, and the woman’s body is mostly turned away from us, her head bowed. Her lower body is wrapped in a voluminous cloth as she leans forward on a chair. The mirror and room around the woman are loosely drawn with a few, economical lines. The artist signed the work in graphite under the lower right corner, “Mary Cassatt.” Another inscription below reads, “38 x 49.”

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    black crayon and graphite on wove paper

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Dimensions

    sheet: 38.3 × 27.7 cm (15 1/16 × 10 7/8 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1948.11.50

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Breeskin 1970, no. 817

Artwork history & notes

Exhibition History

1941

  • Mary Cassatt, Baltimore Museum of Art, MD, 1941-1942, no. 74.

1950

  • Masterpieces of Drawing: Diamond Jubilee Exhibition, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1950-1951, no. 99, repro.

1951

  • Mary Cassatt and her Parisian Friends, Pasadena Art Institute, CA, 1951, no. 10.

1954

  • American Drawings, organized by The United States Information Agency with a tour to Amerika Haus, Munich, Germany; Musee des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, France; and London Tea Center, London, England, 1954.

1961

  • Nineteenth Century Master Drawings, The Newark Museum, NJ, 1961, no. 32, repro.

1962

  • A Generation of Draughtsmen, The University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, 1962, no. 25, repro.

  • Drawings from the National Gallery of Art Collections, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1962 - 1963.

1963

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

1966

  • The Legacy of David and Ingres to Nineteenth Century Art, Dwight Art Memorial, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA, 1966, no. 10, repro.

  • Drawings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1966, no cat.

1969

  • Master Drawings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1969, no cat.

1970

  • Mary Cassatt 1844-1926, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970, no. 86, repro.

1989

  • Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA, 1989-1990.

2008

  • Woman Impressionists: Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès, Marie Bracquemond, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, The Fine Arts Museusm of San Francisco, 2008, unnumbered catalogue.

Bibliography

1970

  • Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oils, Pastels, Watercolors, and Drawings. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1970, no. 817.

1991

  • Wadley, Nicholas. Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Drawing. London, 1991: no. 21.

Inscriptions

lower right in graphite: Mary Cassatt; lower right corner in graphite by unknown hand: 38 x 49; lower left verso in graphite by unknown hand: No 140

Markings

stamped lower left verso in black ink: NGA / LRJ

Wikidata ID

Q64607647

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