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Printed with black lines and areas of dark gray on cream-white paper, two women, one holding a baby on her lap, sit on the long bench seat of an omnibus in this vertical composition. The women and their full skirts take up almost the width of the composition against the gray bench, which extends off both sides. The woman to our left wears a high-collared dress, gloves, and hat. She looks off to our right, almost in profile. She has a round face and the hint of a double chin. One gloved hand rests on a cane. The other woman holds the baby and tips her head down toward the child. Both women’s black hair is pulled up under their hats. The baby wears a white bonnet, a blousy garment, stockings, and shoes, and holds a gray ball in one hand. A row of windows behind them, parallel to the top of the bench, open onto an arched bridge spanning a river with boats. To our left, the water’s edge is lined with puffy forms reminiscent of trees and bushes. The artist signed the work with her initials in graphite in the bottom right, “MC.”

Mary Cassatt

In the Omnibus, 1890-1891

Not on View

Medium

drypoint and aquatint on wove paper

Dimensions

plate: 36.51 × 26.67 cm (14 3/8 × 10 1/2 in.)

sheet: 45.8 × 31.5 cm (18 1/16 × 12 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Rosenwald Collection

Catalogue Raisonné

Mathews and Shapiro 1989, no. 7, iv/vii

Accession Number

1943.3.2752

Artists / Makers

Mary Cassatt (artist) American, 1844 - 1926

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

recto: at lower right in graphite: M.C.; verso: at upper left in graphite in later hand: 1546

Marks and Labels

recto: none; verso: National Gallery of Art

Exhibition History

1951: Mary Cassatt and her Parisian Friends, Pasadena Art Institute, CA, 1951, no. 38.

1982: Lessing J. Rosenwald: Tribute to a Collector, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1982, no. 91, repro.

1989: Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamston, MA, 1989-1990, no. 7-IV, repro.

2001: The Unfinished Print, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2001.

Bibliography

1979: Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Graphic Work. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979, no. 145, ii-iii/iv.

1982: Fine, Ruth E. Lessing J. Rosenwald: Tribute to a Collector. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1982, no. 91.

1989: Mathews, Nancy Mowll, and Barbara Stern Shapiro. Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989, no. 7, iv/vii.