57.2006.1 Cassatt, The Reading Lesson | DMA Staging Content Management System

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

In this image of a mother teaching her daughter to read, Mary Cassatt contrasts the curving, fully modeled forms of the intensely absorbed figures with the flatness of the background. As was the case with all of her work, Cassatt entwines her figures both compositionally and emotionally, done here on a large scale in oil rather than in the medium of pastel with which she is often associated. Sara, the young blonde girl in this painting, was reportedly the daughter of a former president of the French Republic, and a frequent model for the artist at this time. At least forty-three drawings, oils, and pastels feature her.

Excerpt from

William Keyse Rudolph, DMA Label text, 2007.

NOTES

Added geographies to constituent record. (See object draft for Cassatt, Sleepy Baby, 1952.38.M)

I am submitting this online content, despite it being mostly incomplete, because I reviewed and tagged the object in the process of working on other works in the gallery. It is not part of our permanent collection and therefore is not covered under the current online collection policy.

Because the object number will change if this object is ever exloaned or accessioned, I am not using the following rule: Apply to objects with number equals 57.2006.1. I am rewriting the rule to rely on the ObjectID because this is the constant identifier for the TMS record.

Because this object is on loan, I do not have permissions to edit the TMS record. The following catalogue (available digitally through DMA's Piction database or the Portal to Texas History) contains an object description, provenance, exhibition history, and bibliography for this work.

Steven A. Nash, Dallas Collects American Paintings: Colonial to Early Modern (exhibition catalogue, Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1982)), page 100, cat. no 38.

Exhibition ID: 11327

Catalogue- 12712713: UMO

I added the object number to the above exhibition catalogue in Piction.

Source: William Keyse Rudolph, DMA Label copy (57.2006.1), November 2007.

Catalogue essays

Artist/designers

Cassatt, Mary (American, 1844-1926)

Cultures

Geography

made- Le Mesnil-Theribus

Process/materials

oil paint

canvas

Historical periods

1890-1913, United States, "United States at the Turn of the Century"

Individuals

Subject terms

mothers

daughters

children

figures

sitting

dresses

interior spaces

hairstyles

profile

reading

orange

purple

hands

models

RELATED OBJECTS

PROVENANCE

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

TEACHING IDEAS

TI Cassatt, The Reading Lesson

RULES

Apply to objects with id equals 5328610

General Description

In this image of a mother teaching her daughter to read, Mary Cassatt contrasts the curving, fully modeled forms of the intensely absorbed figures with the flatness of the background. As was the case with all of her work, Cassatt entwines her figures both compositionally and emotionally, done here on a large scale in oil rather than in the medium of pastel with which she is often associated. Sara, the young blonde girl in this painting, was reportedly the daughter of a former president of the French Republic, and a frequent model for the artist at this time. At least forty-three drawings, oils, and pastels feature her.