Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Paintings Gallery

Executed during a period of intense experimentation with printmaking techniques, this etching is a testament both to Degas’s close working relationship with fellow artist Mary Cassatt and his own investigation of process and practice of constant reworking. This is a unique impression of the fourth state among the more than twenty states he printed from the copperplate (2024.633). The elongated vertical format was likely adapted from Japanese prints. By overlapping the standing figure of Cassatt with her sister, who is seated reading a guidebook, and adding a cropped threshold to the foreground, Degas presents a radically compressed view that suggests a momentary glimpse of museum visitors and belies the fact that the work is the culmination of a sustained meditation on this motif.