Celebrating The American Wing: American Portraits | Explore & Learn

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The sitter in this painting is Mrs. Robert Moore Riddle (d. 1892), formerly Mary Johnston Dickinson, a first cousin of the artist's mother, Mrs. Robert S. Cassatt. Cassatt began the portrait in 1883 and finished it two years later. The sitter's family refused the portrait on the grounds that her nose appeared too big. Cassatt bemoaned the fact that she had worked so very hard on it and disagreed with their judgment: "You may be sure it was like her." She put the picture away until 1914, when she showed it to her friend Louisine W. Havemeyer, who encouraged her to exhibit it. Later that year, the portrait was a hit at Durand-Ruel Galleries in Paris and in 1915 it was included in an exhibition of works by Edgar Degas, Cassatt, and others organized by Havemeyer at Knoedler and Company in New York.

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Lady at the Tea Table, 1883–85
Mary Cassatt (1844–1926)
Oil on canvas; 29 x 24 in. (73.7 x 61.0 cm)
Gift of Mary Cassatt, 1923 (23.101)

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