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Mother and Child (The Oval Mirror) is an oil-on-canvas painting by the American Impressionist artist Mary Cassatt. The painting depicts a mother and her child in front of a mirror. The painting provides a glimpse of the domestic life of a mother and her child, evoking religious iconography from the Italian Renaissance.
This painting focuses on the bond between mother and child, which became Cassatt’s specialty after about 1890. The artist translated the popular Impressionist subject of adult female bathers into genteel maternal terms: instead of washing herself, a beautifully dressed woman washes her child.
Mother and Child represents a theme that Mary Cassatt often painted throughout her career as an artist. Creating complex, impressionistic lighting effects, a floor mirror reflects the scene in a hazy, indistinct manner.
Title: Mother and Child (The Oval Mirror) Artist: Mary Cassatt (American, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1844–1926 Le Mesnil-Théribus, Oise) Date: ca. 1899. Culture: American. Medium: Oil on canvas. Dimensions: 32 1/8 x 25 7/8 in. (81.6 x 65.7 cm) Credit Line: H.O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H.O. Havemeyer, 1929. Accession Number: 29.100.47
Mar 29, 2018 · Like Degas, Cassatt selectively exposed Mother and Child to moisture vapor. But unlike him, she then seems to have sifted crushed pastel onto the treated surface, so that its slight dampness agglomerated the particles into minute clusters as it dried.
2007.119. On View. Currently not on view. Considered one of the greatest painters of mothers and their children, Mary Cassatt often used the soft, delicate medium of pastel to render her depictions of domestic interiors and family life. She is best known for her ability to capture the intimacies of familial relationships, particularly among women.
The popular identification of Cassatt with the theme of mother and child, which began around 1880, was fully established by 1900, when her works found a wide audience. Created about 1889,...
