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Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Etruscan Gallery

Sitter Mary Cassatt American
1879–80
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 690
As part of the collaborative Impressionist print journal Le Jour et La Nuit (Day and Night), Degas encouraged his friends Mary Cassatt and Camille Pissarro to explore different printmaking techniques with him, layering them in new ways to create innovative compositions. Enthralled by experimentation, Degas and the others often developed their designs through multiple states, each recording alterations made to the copperplate. Degas created nine states of this print, as well as a staggering twenty of a related composition, obsessively reworking the two plates again and again. The artists also sometimes embraced the effects of technical errors or left them visible. Here, traces of Degas’s fingerprints can be seen above the hat of the standing figure of Mary Cassatt at right.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Etruscan Gallery
  • Artist: Edgar Degas (French, Paris 1834–1917 Paris)
  • Sitter: Mary Cassatt (American, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1844–1926 Le Mesnil-Théribus, Oise) and her sister, Lydia
  • Date: 1879–80
  • Medium: Soft ground, aquatint, etching, and drypoint; third state of nine
  • Dimensions: Plate: 10 9/16 x 9 1/8 in. (26.8 x 23.2 cm)
    Sheet: 17 x 12 in. (43.2 x 30.5 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1919
  • Object Number: 19.29.2
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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Ceramic Horn
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late 18th or early 19th century
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1952 (published 1968–70)
Woman Having Her Hair Combed, Edgar Degas French, Pastel on light green wove paper, now discolored to warm gray, affixed to original pulpboard mount
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