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We look slightly down onto a young woman sitting in an upholstered chair and tightly hugging a nude, blond child in this vertical, colored print. Both have pale, peach-toned skin. The woman’s black hair is pulled back though a couple tendrils curl on her forehead. Her eyes are downcast and her pink lips parted. She wears a long, cream-white dress dotted with blush-pink, petal-like forms. One arm is under the baby’s chubby bottom and the other braces the child behind the shoulders. The baby wraps their arms around the woman’s neck so they are cheek to cheek. The chair sits in front of a bed with a boxy frame and a pillowy white mattress. The upholstery on the woman’s chair and the wallpaper behind her are patterned with dusky rose-pink flowers and vines against butter yellow. The floor is coral orange. A mark with an oval, or a mirrored C, over an uppercase M, is stamped in royal blue at the bottom center of the print.

Mary Cassatt

Maternal Caress, 1890-1891

Not on View

Medium

color drypoint, aquatint, and softground etching

Dimensions

plate: 36.83 × 26.83 cm (14 1/2 × 10 9/16 in.)

Credit Line

Rosenwald Collection

Catalogue Raisonné

Mathews and Shapiro 1989, no. 12, vi/vi

Accession Number

1946.21.87

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 .

Exhibition History

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

1950: Master Prints from the Rosenwald Collection, circulated by the American Federation of Arts to 11 venues (California Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA; Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA; Museum of Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI; Grand Rapids Art Gallery, Grand Rapids, MI; The J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY; Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA; Museum of Art at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI; Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO; Norton Gallery and School of Art, West Palm Beach, FL; Watkins Institute, Nashville, TN; and Memphis Academy of Art, Memphis, TN), 1950-1952, no cat.

1952: Etchings and Other Prints from the Rosenwald Collection, Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Lynchburg, VA, 1952-1953, no cat.

1952: Opening Exhibition of the George Thomas Hunter Gallery of Art, Chattanooga Art Association, TN, 1952.

1953: The Collector's Taste, Andrew Dickinson White Art Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 1953-1954.

1958: Color Etchings and Aquatints by Mary Cassatt, Ogunquit Museum of Art, ME, 1958.

1960: Graphic Masterpieces of 500 Years from the National Gallery of Art Rosenwald Collection, Louisiana State University Library, 1960.

1960: Graphic Masterpieces of Five Hundred Years from the Rosenwald Collection, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 1960.

1963: Modern Prints and Illustrated Books from the Rosenwald Collection, 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.

1965: Paintings and Sculpture by Americans of Our Times, Museum of Art of Ogunquit, ME, 1965.

1973: Whistler, Cassatt and Hassam: three American printmakers, Rutgers University Art Gallery, New Brunswick, NJ, 1973.

Bibliography

1979: Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Graphic Work. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979, no. 150, iii/iii.

1989: Mathews, Nancy Mowll, and Barbara Stern Shapiro. Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989, no. 12, vi/vi.