MARY CASSATT

By the Pond, 1898

Color etching and drypoint on paper

Gift of Mrs. M. C. Sloss, 1960.16

Mary Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker working in France who developed her artwork during the Impressionist period. She is most known for her mother/child pieces which highlight the small moments experienced when raising children during the late nineteenth century. Although Cassatt is most well-known for her Impressionist oil paintings, which feature a loose brushstroke style, she often dabbled in various printmaking techniques such as drypoint, soft-ground etching, aquatint, woodblock, and hand coloring. By the Pond, a print made in 1898, captures a warm and loving moment between a mother and her son. Depictions of a mother’s home life while raising a child was an under-represented genre in art and Cassatt’s paintings and prints shine a light on the maternal labor of upper and middle-class women in the nineteenth century. Although this mother/child piece captures a moment of motherhood which is peaceful and calm, the drama of raising a child is a form of women’s labor which is often forgotten.

—Mollie Schottstaedt