GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Sleepy Baby's intensely intimate, tightly cropped scene alternates between areas of closely observed naturalism and sketchy, abstracted passages. Mary Cassatt's spatial experimentation, interest in contemporary subject matter, and extraordinary facility with the medium of pastel, led her to being invited to exhibit with the impressionists beginning in 1879.
Beginning in the 1880s, Cassatt began to investigate themes of mothers and children. She knew family members and friends with young children, but she never painted them. Instead she chose rural women as her models, preferring their robust health and strength to Parisian views of beauty. Her compositions recall Renaissance paintings of the Madonna and Child, and in a letter defending her choice of models, Cassatt reminded her correspondent that even Sandro Botticelli used peasant women as his model for the Virgin.
Sleepy Baby is the last of five pastels Cassatt devoted to this theme during the early 1900s. Cassatt considered these late pastels among her best work in the medium, the short, staccato strokes of chalk animating the surface. Ultimately, the series of five works became one of the last completed by the artist, as not long afterward she began to suffer the effects of double cataracts.
Adapted from
- Eleanor Jones Harvey, DMA object research (1952.38.M), n.d., Collections Records Research File
- William Keyse Rudolph, DMA label copy (1952.38.M), May 2006
NOTES
Completed existing text entries with proper publication information.
Added to text entries:
- 2012 Guide text
- Added Bromberg 1987 docent summary
- Gail Davitt 1986 docent summary
- Text found in curatorial remarks
- P.F.R. undated research essay
Added geographies to constituent record. (See Cassatt CC)
Added Former titles:
- "Mother and Child" appears in Dallas Morning News, Museum Adds Top Painting, section 7, page 5, August 10, 1952.
- "Sleeping Child" from the handwritten label removed from the verso and located in the Collections Records Object File.
- "Enfant dans les bras de la mère" from the former labels on the back of the work (see note below)
- John Asleep, Resting on his Mother's Shoulder- mentioned in Eleanor Jones Harvey's Guide to the Collection entry (1997, page 244).
"Labels on back of Mary Cassatt," folder with paper labels in the object file, accompanied by two hand-written lists of these clippings.
- Cassatt, (M) No 9325, Enfant dans les bras de la mère. Pastel, tbdc.
- "Sleepy Baby" Mrs. Montgomery Sears, 12 Arlington St. Boston, MA.
- "Sleeping Child" Return to 12 Arlington Street.
- In pale notation on the cardboard "Cat 22"
The research file in the Collections Recors Object File contains notations alongside correspondence and related examples that imply a previous DMA staff memeber attemped to narrow the possible provenance for this object. Unfortunatley, no conclusion statement from this research is included in the file.
paper mounted on fine-grained linen- part of handwritten note in file. This material was likely removed is not confirmed in the 2006 conservation report, which states that the paper is on a white mat board backing.
Additional information on the exhibition, publication, and related works is available in the P.F.R. research document. I did not have time to enter all of these items in the TMS record.
Fun fact source: Eleanor Jones Harvey, "Mary Cassatt's 'Sleepy Baby'," in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection, ed. Charles Venable (New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 1997), 244.
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
made- Le Mesnil-Theribus
Process/materials
paper
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
Impressionist
child
infant
mother
woman
model
sitting
sleeping
nude
hairstyle
interior space
pink
hands
face
pyramidal
cross-hatching
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
From 1952: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Munger Fund, purchased from Knoedler [1] [2]
[1] The name of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1933, was changed to the Dallas Museum of Art in 1983.
[2] Works of art purchased by the Mrs. Stephen I. Munger Endowment are placed in the custody of the Dallas Museum of Art for the purpose of exhibition. The title to all works of art purchased by the Munger Fund remains with the Fund.
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
WEB RESOURCES
- Mary Cassatt: A Woman's World (Antiques & Fine Art)~Read William H. Gerdts' informative review of the 2008 exhibition, Mary Cassatt: Prints and Drawings from the Collections of Ambroise Vollard (2008, Adelson Galleries, New York, NY).
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
- Although this work has been called John Asleep, Resting on his Mother's Shoulder, neither mother nor child has been identified.
TEACHING IDEAS
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Apply to objects where number equals 1952.38.M
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General Description
Sleepy Baby's intensely intimate, tightly cropped scene alternates between areas of closely observed naturalism and sketchy, abstracted passages. Mary Cassatt's spatial experimentation, interest in contemporary subject matter, and extraordinary facility with the medium of pastel, led her to being invited to exhibit with the impressionists beginning in 1879.
Beginning in the 1880s, Cassatt began to investigate themes of mothers and children. She knew family members and friends with young children, but she never painted them. Instead she chose rural women as her models, preferring their robust health and strength to Parisian views of beauty. Her compositions recall Renaissance paintings of the Madonna and Child, and in a letter defending her choice of models, Cassatt reminded her correspondent that even Sandro Botticelli used peasant women as his model for the Virgin.
Sleepy Baby is the last of five pastels Cassatt devoted to this theme during the early 1900s. Cassatt considered these late pastels among her best work in the medium, the short, staccato strokes of chalk animating the surface. Ultimately, the series of five works became one of the last completed by the artist, as not long afterward she began to suffer the effects of double cataracts.
Adapted from
- Eleanor Jones Harvey, DMA object research (1952.38.M), n.d., Collections Records Research File
- William Keyse Rudolph, DMA label copy (1952.38.M), May 2006
Fun Facts
- Although this work has been called John Asleep, Resting on his Mother's Shoulder, neither mother nor child has been identified.
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- Mary Cassatt: A Woman's World (Antiques & Fine Art)~Read William H. Gerdts' informative review of the 2008 exhibition, Mary Cassatt: Prints and Drawings from the Collections of Ambroise Vollard (2008, Adelson Galleries, New York, NY).
Notes
Completed existing text entries with proper publication information.
Added to text entries:
- 2012 Guide text
- Added Bromberg 1987 docent summary
- Gail Davitt 1986 docent summary
- Text found in curatorial remarks
- P.F.R. undated research essay
Added geographies to constituent record. (See Cassatt CC)
Added Former titles:
- "Mother and Child" appears in Dallas Morning News, Museum Adds Top Painting, section 7, page 5, August 10, 1952.
- "Sleeping Child" from the handwritten label removed from the verso and located in the Collections Records Object File.
- "Enfant dans les bras de la mère" from the former labels on the back of the work (see note below)
- John Asleep, Resting on his Mother's Shoulder- mentioned in Eleanor Jones Harvey's Guide to the Collection entry (1997, page 244).
"Labels on back of Mary Cassatt," folder with paper labels in the object file, accompanied by two hand-written lists of these clippings.
- Cassatt, (M) No 9325, Enfant dans les bras de la mère. Pastel, tbdc.
- "Sleepy Baby" Mrs. Montgomery Sears, 12 Arlington St. Boston, MA.
- "Sleeping Child" Return to 12 Arlington Street.
- In pale notation on the cardboard "Cat 22"
The research file in the Collections Recors Object File contains notations alongside correspondence and related examples that imply a previous DMA staff memeber attemped to narrow the possible provenance for this object. Unfortunatley, no conclusion statement from this research is included in the file.
paper mounted on fine-grained linen- part of handwritten note in file. This material was likely removed is not confirmed in the 2006 conservation report, which states that the paper is on a white mat board backing.
Additional information on the exhibition, publication, and related works is available in the P.F.R. research document. I did not have time to enter all of these items in the TMS record.
Fun fact source: Eleanor Jones Harvey, "Mary Cassatt's 'Sleepy Baby'," in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection, ed. Charles Venable (New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 1997), 244.
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
made- Le Mesnil-Theribus
Process/materials
paper
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
Impressionist
child
infant
mother
woman
model
sitting
sleeping
nude
hairstyle
interior space
pink
hands
face
pyramidal
cross-hatching
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
From 1952: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Munger Fund, purchased from Knoedler [1] [2]
[1] The name of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1933, was changed to the Dallas Museum of Art in 1983.
[2] Works of art purchased by the Mrs. Stephen I. Munger Endowment are placed in the custody of the Dallas Museum of Art for the purpose of exhibition. The title to all works of art purchased by the Munger Fund remains with the Fund.
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