Sketch of Mrs. Currey/Sketch of Mr. Cassatt--1871.
An example of Cassatt's early "Spanish genre" style--
included here just because I like it.
As one commentator noted when this painting was up for auction recently,
This double/upside-down portrait is . . . both explosive and mysterious, bold and composed. . . . Cassatt began the painting as a portrait of her father, but decided to invert it and do a portrait of a mulatto servant, but just as she finished the mask of her portrait "she [the servant] gave warning" and left. . . ."
Perhaps [Cassatt] left it unfinished intentionally. It is, to my thinking, the definitive America portrait: the strong mulatto woman contrasted with the evanescent father figure of security and dominance, both surrounded by flying, furious brushstrokes of dark paint, two contrasting, competing worlds (source).
Go to Women Painters Index
Return to Cassatt's Lost Mural, p. 1
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Text written by K. L. Nichols
Painting, top of page: Selection from the central panel of
Mary Cassatt's Modern Women Mural (1893)
Return to Nichols Home Page
Suggestions/Comments: knichols11@cox.net
Posted: 6-25-02; Updated: 2-2-15
