Young Mother Sewing

Mary Cassatt American
1900
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 768
In about 1890 Cassatt redirected her art toward women caring for children and children alone—themes that reflected her affection for her nieces and nephews and the prevailing cultural interest in child rearing. Cassatt enlisted two unrelated models to enact the roles of mother and child for this painting. Louisine Havemeyer, who purchased it in 1901, remarked on its truthfulness: “Look at that little child that has just thrown herself against her mother’s knee, regardless of the result and oblivious to the fact that she could disturb ‘her mamma.’ And she is quite right, she does not disturb her mother. Mamma simply draws back a bit and continues to sew.”

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Young Mother Sewing
  • Artist: Mary Cassatt (American, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1844–1926 Le Mesnil-Théribus, Oise)
  • Date: 1900
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 36 3/8 x 29 in. (92.4 x 73.7 cm)
  • Credit Line: H.O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H.O. Havemeyer, 1929
  • Object Number: 29.100.48
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

Audio

Cover Image for Mary Cassatt’s *Young Woman Sewing* | Gallery 768

Mary Cassatt’s Young Woman Sewing | Gallery 768

Hear how this painter played a critical role forging the museum’s collection of Impressionist art.

0:00
0:00

KATY HESSEL: Mary Cassatt was an American Impressionist painter known for her sensitive portraits of motherhood. To me, what makes her paintings so special is how relatable they feel. This work, Young Mother Sewing, seems almost like a snapshot pulled out of a family scrapbook—a young girl slumped in her mother’s lap while she sews.

LAURA D. COREY: It’s almost like you can see both characters breathing a sigh of relief, an exhale. As if Cassatt has just walked out into this sunroom and come upon this scene.

HESSEL: That’s Met curator Laura Corey. And in 1900, when Cassatt made this work, this kind of casualness was groundbreaking. Mother and child portraits were so often quite posed and formal.

COREY: Then what’s different here, what’s so striking, is how comfortable the little girl is leaning into her mother’s lap, that “not a care in the world” attitude.

HESSEL: That’s part of what makes Mary Cassatt’s work so unique and influential. But Cassatt’s influence is also palpable in The Met’s galleries in other ways…

COREY: Cassatt has this presence that spreads through so many of the galleries of the Museum because she was a passionate advocate for collecting the art of the Impressionists—Degas, Manet, Monet—that may not have ever come to the United States, let alone to The Metropolitan Museum, without her influence.

HESSEL: The story of how this came to be starts in Paris in 1874, when Cassatt meets a young wealthy New Yorker, Louisine Havemeyer…

COREY: And she begins to take Louisine around Paris and opens her eyes in this really inspiring way to what is happening in the art world at the time.

HESSEL: She takes her to see Impressionist works, and she speaks passionately about them.

COREY: So it’s with this great enthusiasm and her real gift for sharing that enthusiasm that she brings Louisine into the fold of what was then a tiny circle of admirers of Impressionism.

HESSEL: And Louisine and her husband became important collectors of Impressionist paintings.

COREY: Louisine Havemeyer called Mary Cassatt her fairy godmother of her collection, her inspiration, and her guide—and said that the best things that she bought had been on Cassatt’s advice. Cassatt worked for a period of nearly fifty years in helping the Havemeyers build what became one of the greatest collections of art brought to America.

HESSEL: When Louisine died in 1929, two hundred works of Impressionist art from her and her husband’s collection were donated to The Met. And so though it’s not visible at first glance, Mary Cassatt influenced the paintings you see hanging on the walls of the Museum today. In researching this history, Laura hopes to make that hidden role more visible.

COREY: I think bringing out the stories of these women both in what we do see and in what we don’t see helps to restore their rightful presence in the Museum.

HESSEL: Listen on to hear more incredible stories about women artists at The Met.

More Artwork

Research Resources

The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.

To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.

Feedback

We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.