Art in CONTEXT

Mary Cassatt painted Portrait of a Woman in 1872, during an eight-month stay in Parma, Italy. The painting is dedicated to Carlo Raimondi, a teacher at the Parma Academy from whom Cassatt rented studio space and probably had lessons in printmaking. It was during this, her third trip abroad, that Cassatt decided to settle in Europe permanently.

Painted several years before Cassatt espoused Impressionism, this portrait shows the influence of Italian Baroque painting, especially in its golden light, classical drapery, and, above all, in the figure's monumental proportions. Portrait of a Woman is one of several paintings the artist made of monumental, costumed women during her studies in Parma. Its sense of three- dimensionality differs from Cassatt's later work, in which space is flattened. Throughout her artistic career, Cassatt frequently used women and children as subject matter and depicted them with an unusual degree of understanding and sympathy. Like Edgar Degas, Cassatt was more interested in the everyday subject matter and gesture espoused by the Impressionists than she was concerned with theories about light and brushwork technique. She had a remarkable gift for suggesting emotional connections or states; in this painting, the woman's pensive expression has a poignancy that reveals that this talent developed early.

Marianne Richter

SUGGESTED READINGS:

Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oils, Pastels, Watercolors and Drawings. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1970.

Mathews, Nancy Mowll. Mary Cassatt. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in association with The National Museum of American Art.

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