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Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Paintings Gallery

1879–80
Not on view
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.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Paintings Gallery
  • Artist: Edgar Degas (French, Paris 1834–1917 Paris)
  • Date: 1879–80
  • Medium: Soft ground, aquatint, etching, and drypoint; unique impression of the fourth state of twenty
  • Dimensions: Plate: 12 × 5 in. (30.5 × 12.7 cm)
    Sheet: 14 1/4 × 10 3/8 in. (36.2 × 26.4 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Purchase, James Giblin Bequest, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, and The Derald H. Ruttenberg Foundation Gift, 2025
  • Object Number: 2025.761
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

More Artwork
The Dance Class, Edgar Degas French, Oil on canvas
The Dance Class
Edgar Degas
1874
Ceramic Horn, Glazed pottery, French
Ceramic Horn
French
late 18th or early 19th century
Cloth: Label 1, Richard Tuttle American, Etching with aquatint, spitbite, sugarlift, softground, fabric collé
Cloth: Label 1
Multiple artists/makers
2002–05
Woman Having Her Hair Combed, Edgar Degas French, Pastel on light green wove paper, now discolored to warm gray, affixed to original pulpboard mount
Woman Having Her Hair Combed
Edgar Degas
ca. 1886–88
Osage Warrior, Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin French, Watercolor and graphite on off-white wove paper, American
Osage Warrior
Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin
1805–7

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