Portrait Of A Woman

Mary Cassatt was one of the few American artists to exhibit with the French Impressionists, and her portraits of women captured both their social roles and inner lives. This portrait shows a woman with the fluid brushwork and attention to light that characterized Cassatt's mature style.

Cassatt focused throughout her career on women's experiences: mothers with children, women reading or at tea, figures in theaters and gardens. Unlike her male colleagues who often depicted women as objects of desire, she presented them as individuals with their own thoughts and agency. Edgar Degas, who became her close friend and collaborator, recognized her as one of the movement's most talented painters.

This portrait is held in a private collection. Cassatt exhibited with the Impressionists from 1879 to 1886, and was described alongside Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot as one of the "three great ladies" of the movement. Born in Pittsburgh but based in Paris for most of her adult life, she helped introduce Impressionism to American collectors and shaped the collections of major museums.