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We look slightly down onto a round faced girl with flushed, pale skin sitting almost in profile on a ladderback chair, facing our right. Shown from the lap up, she almost takes up the height of this vertical painting. She wears a voluminous, ice-blue chemise with elbow-length sleeves and a round, sapphire-blue earring in the ear we can see. Her head is tilted slightly back as she reaches up with both hands. With her right hand, closer to us, she holds the end of a chestnut-brown braid hanging over that shoulder. Her other elbow points upward as she touches hair at the base of the neck. Her lips and face are deeply flushed in her otherwise pale face. Her mouth hangs slightly open, revealing white teeth as her half-closed violet-colored eyes gaze off to our right. She sits in the corner of a room with wallpaper decorated in a pattern of tree limbs and leaves in cranberry red and slate blue on a mauve-pink background. A peanut-brown dresser behind her is covered with a white cloth on which sit a white cup and glass pitcher with a tapered neck. A white porcelain ewer and washbasin, tinged with blue, are partially visible behind her bent left elbow. The lower corner of a mirror in a bamboo frame hangs from the upper right. A portion of a burgundy rug fills the lower left corner.

Girl Arranging Her Hair, 1886

Mary Cassatt

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 86

This young woman sits at her dressing table arranging her hair. She is looking at herself in a mirror just outside the frame. Cassatt is referencing a popular tradition in European painting: male artists depicting women dressing or undressing. These works show erotic fantasies of women in private spaces. By contrast, Cassatt’s sitter is enjoying a peaceful moment of self-regard. Her ruddy complexion, large teeth, and recessed chin do not match beauty ideals of the time.

The carefully drawn pose and richly painted white shirt are set against fantastic pink, red, and mauve wallpaper. They signal the care Cassatt took with this portrait, among the most accomplished in her career.

Dive deeper

It was Edgar Degas who invited Cassatt to participate in the impressionist exhibitions, and the two remained close associates. Degas respected Cassatt's work, seeing in her careful compositions an approach to art that was deliberate and well thought out. Degas was known for his sharp criticism of other artists' work. He once complained to Cassatt: "What do women know about style?" She took his words as a challenge to produce a work whose appeal derived, not from a conventionally pretty subject, but purely from artifice, the painter's skill, and style. This painting is the result.

She chose a subject that Degas himself had often depicted: an ordinary, working–class girl at her toilette. The beauty of the picture comes from the rigor of the composition and its harmonized contrast of pinks and blues—in the sitter's nightdress, in the background, and even in her skin. While the moment is casual, even private, the girl's pose and the arrangement of furniture behind her are artfully contrived. Note, for example, how the chair back, the dry sink, and the mirror–frame rise in steps parallel to the motion of her arms, echoing and enhancing their upward sweep.

Object Data

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 75.1 x 62.5 cm (29 9/16 x 24 5/8 in.)

framed: 96.5 x 83.2 cm (38 x 32 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Chester Dale Collection

Accession Number

1963.10.97

Artists / Makers

Mary Cassatt (artist) American, 1844 - 1926

Image Use

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Detail Information

Provenance

Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas [1834-1917]; (his atelier sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 26-28 March 1918, no. 8); purchased by Louisine Waldron Havemeyer [1855-1929], New York; (her sale, American Art Association Anderson Galleries, New York, 10 April 1930, no. 75); purchased by Chester Dale [1883-1962]; bequest 1963 to NGA.

Associated Names

American Art Association
Dale, Chester
Degas, Edgar
Galerie Georges Petit
Havemeyer, Louisine Waldron

Exhibition History

1886: La 8me Exposition de Peinture [Eighth Impressionist Exhibition], Paris, 1886, no. 9, as Etude.

1893: Exposition Mary Cassatt, Galeries Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1893, no. 17.

1908: Tableaux et Pastels par Mary Cassatt, Galeries Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1908, no. 1, as La Toilette.

1910: Possibly Austellung Amerikanische Kunst, Royal Academy of Art, Berlin, 1910, as "Bei der Toilette."

1920: Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Representative Modern Masters, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1920, no. 7.

1926: A Memorial Collection of the Works of Mary Cassatt, Art Institute of Chicago, 1926-1927, no. 4, repro., as Girl Combing Her Hair.

1927: [Memorial Exhibition], Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia, 1927, no. 7.

1928: A Memorial Exhibition of the Work of Mary Cassatt, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 1928, no. 9.

1931: Degas and his Tradition, Museum of French Art, New York, 1931, no. 7.

1933: A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, 1933, no. 438, repro.

1934: A Survey of American Painting, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1934, no. 11, repro.

1946: American Painting, Tate Gallery, London, 1946, no. 39, as The Morning Toilet.

1965: The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.

1970: Mary Cassatt 1844-1926, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1970, no. 38, repro.

1986: The New Painting: Impressionism 1874-1886, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1986, no. 138, repro. (shown only in Washington).

1998: Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman, The Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998-1999, no. 48, as Study (Etude) (shown only in Washington).

2010: From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, January 2010-January 2012, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

1930: "Rush at Auction of Havemeyer Art." The New York Times. 11 April 1930:23

1942: French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 42, repro., as The Morning Toilet.

1944: French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1944: 42, repro., as The Morning Toilet.

1944: Jewell, Edward Alden. French Impressionists and their Contemporaries Represented in American Collections. New York, 1944: repro. 82.

1952: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 156, color repro., as The Morning Toilet.

1953: French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1953: 52, repro., as The Morning Toilet.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 328, repro., as The Morning Toilet.

1965: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 82, repro.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:498, color repro.

1968: Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 15.

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 22, repro.

1970: Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oils, Pastels, Watercolors, and Drawings. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1970, no. 146.

1979: Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 117, pl. 103.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 34, repro.

1981: Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: 139, 140, color repro. 154.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 564, no. 857, color repro.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 40, repro.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 365, no. 300, color repro.

2008: Pfieffer, Ingrid and Max Hollein. Women Impressionists: Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès, Marie Bracquemond. Exh. cat. Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2008: 26, repro.

2013: Jones, Kimberley. "Degas/Cassatt." National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 49 (Fall 2013): 36-37, repro.