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Article start, to include Cassatt's Fourth Impressionist Exhibition show. I'm not sure I'll be able to find details of all the paintings involved. Contributions welcome or drop me a note on my Talk page.
This is a test citation for Bullard.[1] This is another test citation for Bullard the same page,[1] and this is a once-only citation for a different page.[2]
Drawing of Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge (pencil, 1879), private collection, reproduced in La Vie Moderne (9 August 1879)
The drawing was reproduced in the 9 August 1879 edition of the La Vie Moderne, a literary and artistic review whose illustrators included Pierre-Auguste Renoir, likewise a painter of theatre scenes.[3][4][5]
The example on the right below is in an intermediate state, lacking spectators and decoration on the balcony. It was amongst the 700 or so Cassatt prints in various stages of production found in Degas' studio at his death, and fetched £37,250 at a Christie's, London, sale in September 2011.[6]
The identity of all the twelve works (one of them hors catalogue) shown by Cassat is not known with certainty.[7] The following list is sourced from Griselda Pollock unless otherwise indicated.[8] The American art historian George Shackelford includes Cassatt's Portait of a Little Girl in the show, a painting that had been rejected by the American section of the 1878 Exposition Universelle.[9] Many of Cassatt's paintings are known by a variety of titles (this is especially so for the theater paintings). Generally the museum title has been chosen in the list below.
M. Degas and Mlle. Cassatt are perhaps the only artists who distinguish themselves in this group of "dependent" Independents, and who give the only attraciveness and excuse to this pretentious display of rough sketches and childish daubs, in the middle of which one is almost surprised to come across their neglected works. Both have a lively sense of the fragmented lighting in Paris apartments; both find unique nuances of color to render the flesh tints of woman fatigued by late nights and the rustling lightness of wordly fashions.
The column headed "BrCR" gives the catalogue number in Adelyn Breeskin's catalogue raisonné, and these are linked to their entries in the Smithsonian SIRIS database.
The subject of this article. Lydia frequently posed for her sister (she is thought to be the sitter for five of the portaits here), but she was in poor health at the time and was to die just two years later.[10]
The museum page suggests the painting was possibly shown at the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition as Portrait de petite fille. Cassatt's strong color and vigorous brushwork mark her connection with the Impressionists. The influence of Degas is evident.[11] Germaine Greer calls the painting Cassat's first real "stunner", while Griselda Pollock declares it one of the most radical images of childhood of the time.[12][13] John Bullard likens the chairs to bump cars at an amusement park and notes that the dog is a Belgian griffon, a breed Cassat probably discovered during her stay in Antwerp in 1873 and kept all her life.[14][15]
The sitter is generally identified as Cassat's sister Lydia. The museum page comments that the heightened coloration and loose brushwork is consistent with Impressionism, and that the influence of photography and Japanese prints can be seen in the cropping and diagonal composition.
Originally in the collection of Edgar Degas who introduced Cassatt to pastel. Cassatt is famously recorded as reminiscing, "How well I remember, seeing for the first time Degas' pastels in the window of a picture dealer on the Boulevard Haussman. I used to go and flatten my nose against that window and absorb all I could of his art. It changed my life." [16]
1879 - In the Box, (oil on canvas, 17 in × 14 in), private collection
The painting was purchased by Mrs. Thomas A. Scott from Paul Durand-Ruel, a dealer associated with the Impressionists. Adelyn D. Breeskin, Cassatt's most noted historian and the author of two catalogue raisonnés of her work, quotes a November 1883 letter from Cassatt's mother to her son Alexander (Alexander Cassatt, the railway magnate, whose success in some ways eclipsed his sister's achievements),[17] "Annie [Mrs. Scott] went to Durand-Ruel's the other day and bought a picture by Mary, perhaps you remember it - two young girls at the theater".[18][19] The painting sold for $4,072,500 at Christie's, New York, in 1996.[20]
Cassat received her commission for this portrait of the collector Moyse Dreyfus, who was to become a friend and an early patron, through her Impressionist connections. The portrait was unusual for its day in that it portrayed Dreyfus wearing eyeglasses.[21] Dreyfus also owned Cassatt's Lilacs in a Window.[22]
Moyse Dreyfus was related through marriage to the sociologist Émile Durkheim, who championed the cause of Alfred Dreyfus, also a relative, in the Dreyfus Affair. Cassatt was likewise a supporter, bringing her into conflict with Degas who was an avowed anti-Semite. Nevertheless they continued to maintain their cordial relations right up until Degas' death in 1917, a period of some 40 years.[23]
c. 1880 - Young Lady in a Loge Gazing to Right, (pastel and gouache with metallic paint on tan wove paper, 25.5 in × 21.5 in). private collection
Griselda Pollock comments that Cassatt used the theater to situate her subjects in a social setting without having to abandon a close viewpoint. In this radically flattened composition, the interior space is compressed by the curving sweep of the theater's tiered boxes.[24] The painting was formerly in the collection of Paul Gauguin. It fetched $2.53 million at a Sotheby's sale in 1992.[25]
The painting is also known as Young Woman in Black and the Smithsonian catalogue lists it as a portrait of Cassatt's sister-in-law Eugenie Carter (Jennie). Cassatt made sevaral portraits of her sister-in-law, including the artistically significant 1888 drypointGardner (Cassatt) Held by His Mother that presaged Cassatt's mother and child signature theme, eventually comprising fully a third of her entire opus. The Breeskin catalogue dates this portrait as 1883 (and thus the painting could not have been shown at the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition were that date correct). Breeskin notes that the figure shows the influence of Manet, whereas the upholstered chair and background reflects that of Degas.[26] The picture on the wall is Degas' Fan Mount: Ballet Girls (picture), also shown at the exhibition. Cassatt acquired it, and in turn Degas acquired Cassat's In the Loge shown above (presumably an exchange). Both paintings use metallic paints.[27]
The sitter is generally thought to be Mary Ellison, the daughter of a Philadelphia businessman who commissioned Cassatt to paint an earlier 1887 portrait Mary Ellison Embroidering. The museum page notes that the painting demonstrates Cassatt's affinities with the Impressionists. The brushwork is open and sketchy, and she favours strong compositional structure over pictorial detail. The use of a mirror was a favorite device of Cassatt's, allowing an expansion of the picture's implied space.[28]
Nancy Mathews remarks that Cassatt made her sitters appear abstracted and slightly melancholic, pleasing some but not all of her clients.[29]Germaine Greer finds her subjects at this time enigmatic and challenging, absorbed in their own private concerns, and in this portrait possibly even harbouring bitter reflections.[12]
The sitter is generally thought to be Cassat's sister Lydia. The painting is also called Woman Reading in a Garden, but the museum page points out a balcony rail can be discerned in the upper right behind the flowers, while the dress is a morning dress not suitable for public wear.
Cassatt had already painted her mother reading a newspaper (Reading "Le Figaro") two years before,[30] and the following year Manet exhibited his painting Woman Reading at the La Vie Moderne gallery, a daring portrait of a young fashionably dressed woman reading an illustrated newspaper in the grounds of a café (territory forbidden to a lady of class such as Cassatt), disceetly referenced by the glass of beer at her side and the newspaper rod (picture). The museum page notes, and Griselda Pollock discussess, the modernity of the subject: Lydia is reading a newspaper and not a novel.[31]
Also known as Lydia Leaning on Her Arms, Seated in a Loge.
John Bullard comments that the pose may dervive from Degas' Portrait of Mary Cassat, now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery (United States), which shows Cassatt leaning foward holding three visiting cards (picture). This pastel may well be the picture admired by the influential critic Joris-Karl Huysmans at the Fifth Impressionist exhibition, "the charming picture of a red-headed woman, dressed in yellow her back reflected in a mirror in the purple background of an opera box". Bullard is reminded of the "women fatigued by late nights" of the critic George Lafenestre quoted above.[32]
The museum page suggests this painting was exhibited at the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition.[33] Griselda Pollock offers the Boston Museum of Fine Art's The Tea (BrCR 78pic) instead.[34] Both were certainly shown at the Fifth Impressionist Exhibition the following year.
The museum catalogue observes the painting is closely related to Woman Reading:[7]
The high vantage point, the asymetrical placing and arbitrary cropping of the figure, the fluent brushwork, the luminous and high-key palette are very much part of the Impressionist idiom... [the painting] is a fine example of Cassatt's skill as a colorist.
Barter, Judith A.., ed. (1998). Mary Cassatt, modern woman / organized by Judith A. Barter ; with contributions by Erica E. Hirshler ... [et al.] New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.ISBN0810940892. LCCN98007306.
Chessman, Harriet (1993). "Mary Cassatt and the Maternal Body". In Miller, David C. (ed.). American Iconology. London: New Haven. pp. 239–58. ISBN0300054785. LCCN92046082.
Rubinstein, Charlotte Streifer (1982). American Women Artists: From the Early Indian Times to Present. Boston: G. K. Hall. ISBN0816185352. LCCN81020135.
![In the Opera Box (No. 3) [Recto], (graphite on wove paper, 1880), National Gallery of Art](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Mary_Cassatt_-_In_the_Opera_Box_%28No._3%29_-_NGA_1946.21.82.a.jpg/152px-Mary_Cassatt_-_In_the_Opera_Box_%28No._3%29_-_NGA_1946.21.82.a.jpg)
In the Opera Box (No. 3) [Recto], (graphite on wove paper, 1880), National Gallery of Art
In the Opera Box (No. 3) (softground etching, aquatint, and etching in black on wove paper, circa 1880), National Gallery of Art
In the Opera Box (softground, aquatint and etching on wove paper, circa 1880), private collection.![In the Opera Box (No. 3) [Recto], (graphite on wove paper, 1880), National Gallery of Art](/wiki/File:Mary_Cassatt_-_In_the_Opera_Box_(No._3)_-_NGA_1946.21.82.a.jpg)
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