The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Vertically long print in dark ink looking around the edge of a wall at two women in a painting gallery. One stands, viewed from behind, wearing a dark coat and hat, swinging a cane behind her. Seated behind her, in a dark coat and dress that occasionally disappears into the other woman's dark coat, a woman wearing a hat holds a book in front of her face but looks to her left, towards the paintings.
1879–80

Edgar Degas

(French, 1834–1917)
France, 19th century
etching, softground etching, and aquatint
Platemark: 30.2 x 12.6 cm (11 7/8 x 4 15/16 in.); Sheet: 36.5 x 22.3 cm (14 3/8 x 8 3/4 in.)
The Charles W. Harkness Endowment Fund 1929.876
Catalogue raisonné: Reed and Shapiro 52
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Around the same time, Edgar Degas made a second etching showing Mary Cassatt in the Musée du Louvre, this time in the Etruscan Gallery.

Description

Cassatt said that she posed for Degas "only once in a while when he finds the movement difficult and the model cannot seem to get his idea." In fact, she modeled for her friend on numerous occasions beginning in 1879 for a pastel titled At the Louvre, upon which Degas based this etching. Here, Degas showed Cassatt and her sister Lydia in Paris's Musée du Louvre, both involved in studying the paintings on view. Created at a time when women were less frequently seen alone in pub spaces, the image suggests the young women's independence and confidence.
  • Pickvance, Ronald. Degas 1879. Exh. Cat. Edinburgh: National Gallery of Scotland, 1979. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 82, no. 116
  • Mary Cassatt and the Feminine Ideal in 19th-Century Paris. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (October 14, 2012-January 20, 2013).
    Inventive Impressions: 18th- and 19-Century French Prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26-October 28, 2001).
    Degas 1879. National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (organizer) (August 13-September 30, 1979).
    Degas 1879. National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh (August 13 - September 30, 1979).
    The Artist and the Studio in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 5-August 13, 1978).
    Japonisme: Japanese Influence on French Art, 1854 - 1910. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 9-August 31, 1975); Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, NJ (October 4-November 16, 1975); Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, MD (December 10, 1975-January 26, 1976).
    Etchings of Edgar Degas. The Renaissance Society, Chicago, IL (organizer) (May 3-June 12, 1964).
  • {{cite web|title=Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Paintings Gallery|url=false|author=Edgar Degas|year=1879–80|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1929.876