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:

Degas and his friends Mary Cassatt and Camille Pissarro were all experimental printmakers who combined traditional printmaking techniques to create a black and white equivalent for the tonality and varied textures of paintings. They were all so involved in printmaking that in 1879–80 they planned to publish a journal, Le Jour et la nuit (Day and Night), that would contain original etchings. As a printmaker, Degas was ambivalent about when a plate was considered finished. What attracted him to printmaking was the variability. He thoroughly enjoyed reworking, retouching, and transforming plates, often progressing toward more subtle painterly effects.

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, aquatint, and drypoint
• Dimensions: Platemark: 30.2 x 12.6 cm (11 7/8 x 4 15/16 in.); Sheet: 36.3 x 26.6 cm (14 5/16 x 10 1/2 in.)
• Collection: PR - Etching
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1947.459

A detail from the museum

The figure seated in the foreground is believed to be Mary Cassatt's sister, Lydia.

Collection credit

Gift of Leonard C. Hanna Jr.

Further reading listed by the museum

• Pickvance, Ronald. Degas 1879. Exh. Cat. Edinburgh: National Gallery of Scotland, 1979.

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.