page_title: Mary Cassatt
section_title: Relationship with Degas
hierarchical_section_title: Mary Cassatt / Relationship with Degas
caption_attribution_description: English: Oil on canvas painting of Mary Stevenson Cassatt; size without frame 73.3×60&#160;cm.
context_page_description: Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, but lived much of her adult life in France where she befriended Edgar Degas and exhibited with the Impressionists. Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children.
  She was described by Gustave Geffroy as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot. In 1879, Diego Martelli compared her to Degas, as they both sought to depict movement, light, and design in the most modern sense.
context_section_description: Cassatt and Degas had a long period of collaboration. The two painters had studios close together, Cassatt at 19, rue Laval, (48.8808°N 2.3384°E), Degas at 4, rue Frochot, (48.8811°N 2.3377°E), less than a five-minute stroll apart, and Degas developed the habit of looking in at Cassatt's studio and offering her advice and helping her gain models.
  They had much in common: they shared similar tastes in art and literature, came from affluent backgrounds, had studied painting in Italy, and both were independent, never marrying. The degree of intimacy between them cannot be assessed now, as no letters survive, but it is unlikely they were in a relationship given their conservative social backgrounds and strong moral principles. Several of Vincent van Gogh's letters attest Degas' sexual continence. Degas introduced Cassatt to pastel and engraving, both of which Cassatt quickly mastered, while for her part Cassatt was instrumental in helping Degas sell his paintings and promoting his reputation in America.
  Both regarded themselves as figure painters, and the art historian George Shackelford suggests they were influenced by the art critic Louis Edmond Duranty's appeal in his pamphlet The New Painting for a revitalization in figure painting: "Let us take leave of the stylized human body, which is treated like a vase. What we need is the characteristic modern person in his clothes, in the midst of his social surroundings, at home or out in the street."
  After Cassatt's parents and sister Lydia joined Cassatt in Paris in 1877, Degas, Cassatt, and Lydia were often to be seen at the Louvre studying artworks together. Degas produced two prints, notable for their technical innovation, depicting Cassatt at the Louvre looking at artworks while Lydia reads a guidebook. These were destined for a prints journal planned by Degas (together with Camille Pissarro and others), which never came to fruition. Cassatt frequently posed for Degas, notably for his millinery series trying on hats.
  Around 1884, Degas made a portrait in oils of Cassatt, Mary Cassatt Seated, Holding Cards. A Self-Portrait (c. 1880) by Cassatt depicts her in the identical hat and dress, leading art historian Griselda Pollock to speculate they were executed in a joint painting session in the early years of their acquaintance.
  Cassatt and Degas worked most closely together in the fall and winter of 1879–80 when Cassatt was mastering her printmaking technique. Degas owned a small printing press, and by day she worked at his studio using his tools and press while in the evening she made studies for the etching plate the next day. However, in April 1880, Degas abruptly withdrew from the prints journal they had been collaborating on, and without his support the project folded. Degas' withdrawal piqued Cassatt who had worked hard at preparing a print, In the Opera Box, in a large edition of fifty impressions, no doubt destined for the journal. Although Cassatt's warm feelings for Degas were to last her entire life, she never again worked with him as closely as she had over the prints journal. Mathews notes that she ceased executing her theater scenes at this time.
  Degas was forthright in his views, as was Cassatt. They clashed over the Dreyfus affair (early in her career she had executed a portrait of the art collector Moyse Dreyfus, a relative of the court-martialled lieutenant at the center of the affair). Cassatt later expressed satisfaction at the irony of Lousine Havermeyer's 1915 joint exhibition of hers and Degas' work being held in aid of women's suffrage, equally capable of affectionately repeating Degas' antifemale comments as being estranged by them (when viewing her Two Women Picking Fruit for the first time, he had commented "No woman has the right to draw like that"). From the 1890s onwards their relationship took on a decidedly commercial aspect, as in general had Cassatt's other relations with the Impressionist circle; nevertheless they continued to visit each other until Degas died in 1917.
caption: Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt Seated, Holding Cards, c. 1880–1884, oil on canvas, 74 × 60 cm, National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC. NPG.84.34 Cassatt hated it later and wrote to her dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in 1912 or 1913 that "I don't want anyone to know that I posed for it."
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