Woman with a Sunflower by Mary Cassatt, painted around 1905. Oil on canvas. The painted surface is about 3 feet high by 2 and a half feet wide.
This description is about 3 minutes long.
A white woman, dressed in shades of yellow with a sunflower pinned onto her robe over one breast, sits with a small naked child on her lap. The woman and child both have pale, pink and white skin. They are reflected in a rectangular mirror on the wall next to them, to our left. Together they also hold up a small round hand mirror, which reflects the face of the child.
We look slightly down onto the pair. The bottom edge of the canvas crops the woman’s legs mid-shin, just below the level of the child’s feet.
The painting is worked in loose, flowing brushstrokes; the reflection in the wall mirror is particularly free and the details are indistinct.
Let’s focus now on the woman and child.
The woman sits in a wooden armchair. The frame of the chair is painted mint green, with rose-pink upholstery at the back and seat. It’s angled so that the woman’s body and face are turned towards our left, with her knees near the lower left corner of the painting. Her head is at the top right of the canvas. Her ginger red hair is loosely swept up and pinned on top of her head.
She has pale lashes, dark eyes under light brows, and her full lips are closed. She looks towards the round hand mirror she holds in her right hand. Her left hand – nearest to us – rests on the shoulder of the child on her lap. The woman wears a low-cut, dress-like garment in a pale primrose yellow. The sunflower is pinned to her bodice over her left breast. Her garment splits over the shoulders to reveal long, trailing sleeves in a darker yellow that matches the sunflower.
Facing our left nearly in profile, the naked child turns away from us to look towards the hand mirror. The child has shoulder length, silky, blond hair and the round belly of a toddler. Both hands are raised to the handle of the gold-framed mirror that the woman holds up. The mirror reflects most of the child’s face from the front.
The top left quarter of the painting is taken up by the rectangular wall mirror, with a mint green frame to match the chair. It is especially loosely painted, so only generally reflects the woman and child.
The background of the painting is olive brown.
