The Reader - Mary Cassatt
Archival giclée
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Description
A delicate Impressionist portrait by Mary Cassatt, capturing a woman in a moment of quiet contemplation while reading by a window.
Mary Cassatt, an American painter who spent much of her professional life in France, produced this work during the early years of her association with the Impressionist circle. The painting depicts a woman in profile, absorbed in a book, positioned near a window. The composition relies on the interplay of light filtering through the glass and the soft textures of the subject's clothing.
Cassatt employs a palette dominated by whites, soft pinks, and muted greens, characteristic of her interest in capturing domestic scenes with a focus on natural illumination. The brushwork is loose and expressive, allowing the surface of the canvas to retain a sense of immediacy. The subject wears a decorative hat with a pink ribbon, a detail that adds a touch of colour to the otherwise light-toned scene. The background, visible through the window, is rendered with quick, gestural strokes that suggest foliage without providing excessive detail.
This piece reflects the broader Impressionist interest in the private lives of women, a subject Cassatt explored throughout her career. By placing the figure in a quiet, contemplative moment, she avoids the theatricality often found in academic portraiture of the period. The focus remains on the act of reading, a common activity for the middle-class women she frequently portrayed. The painting demonstrates her ability to balance the formal requirements of a portrait with the spontaneous quality of a captured moment. Her technique shows the influence of her contemporaries, such as Edgar Degas, while maintaining a distinct approach to light and colour. The work is a fine example of her early mastery of the Impressionist idiom, showing her skill in handling light and texture to create a sense of calm and intimacy.
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Because every print is made to order, we don't offer change-of-mind returns, refunds or exchanges. If your order arrives faulty, damaged or incorrect, we'll replace it free of charge — just contact us within 48 hours of delivery. See our refunds page for full details.
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Each print is produced to order using 12-colour giclée printing on FSC-certified archival paper. Designed in Britain and printed at your nearest production hub to reduce waste and speed up delivery.
Care and materials
Specific Features
Every Solis piece is made to order with archival, gallery-quality materials built to last.
- Museum-grade giclée printing for rich, fade-resistant colour
- Archival matte fine-art paper, FSC-certified
- Multiple sizes and framing options available
- Frames in black, natural wood, dark wood or white
- Framed prints arrive ready to hang
Care & Cleaning
To keep your artwork looking its best:
- Dust gently with a soft, dry cloth
- Avoid prolonged direct sunlight
- Never use liquid cleaners on the print or canvas surface
- Keep in a dry, room-temperature space
- Handle prints with clean, dry hands
Materials & Sizing
Museum-grade giclée on FSC-certified archival matte paper, with framed and canvas options.
- Paper sizes: A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 and B2 (50×70 cm)
- Canvas: XS (20×30 cm) to Large (60×90 cm)
- Frames: black, natural wood, dark wood or white
The Reader - Mary Cassatt
Artist Biography
Mary Cassatt
She grew up in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), in a prosperous family. She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she found the instruction restrictive and the male students hostile. She moved to Paris in 1866, copied old masters in the Louvre, and studied privately with several painters before finding her direction with the Impressionists.
Her subject was women and children in domestic settings: mothers bathing infants, women reading, girls at the opera, women having tea. The subject matter sounds conventional. The treatment is not. She observed her subjects with the same unsentimental attention Degas brought to dancers. The compositions are cropped and angled, influenced by Japanese prints and by Degas's habit of painting people from unexpected viewpoints. Little Girl in a Blue Armchair (1878) shows a child sprawled across a chair with the boredom and physical abandon that adults rarely notice and painters rarely record.
She never married. She was wealthy enough not to need to sell her work. She used her position and her connections to persuade American collectors, particularly the Havemeyers, to buy Impressionist paintings. The Havemeyer collection, much of it acquired on Cassatt's advice, was donated to the Metropolitan Museum. She shaped the taste of American collectors more than any other single individual.
She developed cataracts and was nearly blind by 1914. She stopped painting. She died in 1926, at eighty-two.
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