Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Paintings Gallery (1879–80): Art, History and Details

Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Paintings Gallery (1879–80) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Cassatt said that she posed for Degas "only once in a while when he finds the movement difficult and the model cannot seem to get his idea." In fact, she modeled for her friend on numerous occasions beginning in 1879 for a pastel titled At the Louvre, upon which Degas based this etching. Here, Degas showed Cassatt and her sister Lydia in Paris's Musée du Louvre, both involved in studying the paintings on view. Created at a time when women were less frequently seen alone in pub spaces, the image suggests the young women's independence and confidence.

Object facts

• Title: Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Paintings Gallery
• Date: 1879–80
• Creator attribution: Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: etching, softground etching, and aquatint
• Dimensions: Platemark: 30.2 x 12.6 cm (11 7/8 x 4 15/16 in.); Sheet: 36.5 x 22.3 cm (14 3/8 x 8 3/4 in.)
• Collection: PR - Etching
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1929.876

A detail from the museum

Around the same time, Edgar Degas made a second etching showing Mary Cassatt in the Musée du Louvre, this time in the Etruscan Gallery.

Collection credit

The Charles W. Harkness Endowment Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Pickvance, Ronald. Degas 1879. Exh. Cat. Edinburgh: National Gallery of Scotland, 1979.
• Lemonedes, Heather. "The Feminine Ideal." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 52, no. 5 (September/October 2012): 4-6.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.