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The Banjo Lesson

Photo: Susan Cole

The Banjo Lesson

ca. 1893

Mary Cassatt

Allegheny City, Pennsylvania 1844-1926 Menil-Theribus, Oise, France

Cassatt became especially interested in printmaking under the spell of Japanese woodblock prints. In 1800, Parisians flocked to an exhibition of Japanese prints. Cassatt was terrifically excited by the show. She wrote to her friend, painter Berthe Morisot, "You couldn't dream of anything more beautiful. I dream of it and don't think of anything else but color on copper."

Cassatt loved the ethereal quality of delicate dry point lines made directly into the copper plate and the atmospheric qualities of aquatint, a medium so called because it suggests the character of watercolor. This particular suite of prints is from a group that Cassatt kept for herself and then passed on to the famous Paris art dealer and print publisher Ambroise Vollard, who preserved them as Cassatt's studio collection.




Drypoint on grey-green laid paper
Plate: 11 3/4 x 9 1/4in. (29.8 x 23.5cm)
Sheet: 14 1/8 x 12 1/4in. (35.8 x 31.1cm)
Frame: 23 x 19 in. (58.4 x 48.3 cm)
Gift from a private collection
2003.124
Provenance: The artist to 1904-1906; sold to Ambroise Vollard (1868-1939), Paris, 1904-1906 to 1939; sold to unidentified collector, Paris, 1939-1980; descended in that owner's family, 1980-ca. 2000; sold to [Marc Rosen Fine Art, Ltd., New York], ca. 2000; sold through [Adelson Galleries, Inc., New York] to donor, 2000
Photo: Susan Cole
location
Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, SAM at 75: Building a Collection for Seattle, May 5-Sept. 9, 2007. No catalogue.

New York, Adelson Galleries, Mary Cassatt: Prints and Drawings from the Artist's Studio, Nov. 10-Dec. 29, 2000. Text by Marc Rosen and Susan Pinsky. No cat. no., pp 16, 22, 23 (n. 2), pp. 98-99, reproduced p. 99.

Published ReferencesBreeskin, Adelyn Dohme. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Graphic Work. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979; cat. no. 156, pp. 65, 150.

Mathews, Nancy Mowll and Barbara Stern Shapiro. Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., in association with Williams College Museum of Art, 1989; cat. no. 16, pp. 48-51, 164-167.

cf. Kramer, Hilton. "Mary Cassatt Revealed as a Great Printmaker." New York Observer, December 4, 2000: pp. 1, 16.

Junker, Patricia. "America in the Artful Age." A Community of Collectors. Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 2008; p. 187, reproduced fig. 156.

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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