1 / 1

download image
This image is in the public domain. You can copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes. Learn more about our image policies.

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 tan, and the jacket is open to reveal a vertically pleated, beige-pink shirt beneath. The woman’s skin is faintly tinted almost yellow. 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 and muted brown flowers against a white background. The sheet is inscribed with graphite across the right half of the bottom margin, “Edition de 25 épreuves Imprimée par l'artiste et M. Leroy Mary Cassatt.”

Mary Cassatt

The Letter, 1890-1891

Not on View

Medium

color drypoint and aquatint on laid paper

Dimensions

plate: 34.6 x 22.8 cm (13 5/8 x 9 in.)

sheet: 43.6 x 30.3 cm (17 3/16 x 11 15/16 in.)

Credit Line

Chester Dale Collection

Catalogue Raisonné

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

Accession Number

1963.10.251

Artists / Makers

Mary Cassatt (artist) American, 1844 - 1926

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

lower right in graphite: Edition de 25 épreuves Imprimée par l'artiste et M. Leroy / Mary Cassatt

Exhibition History

1936: Mary Cassatt, Baltimore Museum of Art, MD, 1936, no. 26.

1965: Graphic Arts from the Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965.

1966: Master Prints from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966 - 1967.

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

1970: Mary Cassatt, 1844-1926, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970.

1970: Prints from the Rosenwald Collection, Charleston Art Gallery, Charleston, WV, 1970.

1977: Prints of Paris: The 1890s, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1977.

1983: Graphics Survey Exhibition, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 1983.

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

1998: Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman, The Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998-1999, no. 59 (shown only in Washington).

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.

1994: Mathews, Nancy Mowll. Mary Cassatt: A Life. New York, 1994: 196, fig. 85.

1997: Hughes, Robert. American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America. New York, 1997:259, color fig. 155.

1998: Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman. Exh. cat. The Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1998-1999: 84, no. 59.