About This Artwork

Mary Cassatt
American, 1844-1926

Mother and Child, c. 1900

Pastel on blue-gray wove paper (faded to tan), mounted on board
710 x 585 mm
Signed recto, lower right: "Mary Cassatt"
Bequest of Dr. John Jay Ireland, 1968.81

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

The Art Institute of Chicago, "Sargent, Whistler and Mary Cassatt," January 14-February 25, 1954, pp. 32-33 (ill.), cat. 25, cat. by Frederick Sweet; also traveled to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, March 25-May 23, 1954.

New York, E. and A. Silberman Galleries, "An Exhibition of Paintings for the Benefit of the Research Fund of Art and Archaeology, The Spanish Institute, Inc." October 12-November 1, 1955, p. 41 (ill.), cat. 29.

The Art Institute of Chicago, "Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman," October 10, 1998-January 10, 1999, pp. 308 and 326, cat. 86 (ill.).

Publication History

The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago, A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961), p. 90.

Frederick Sweet, "Paintings and Pastels by Mary Cassatt," The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Studies 2 (1967), p. 44, fig. 11.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Annual Report (1967-1968), p. 26.

Adelyn Breeskin, Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oils, Pastels, Watercolors and Drawings (Washington, D.C., 1970), no. 318 (ill.), as Sleepy Nicolle.

Sarah Webb and Kristen Fredrickson, Singular Women (Berkeley, 2003).

Kathleen Pyne, Modernism and the Feminine Voice,
O'Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle (California, November 2006).

Ownership History

The artist to Ambroise Vollard (1867-939), Paris, 1904 [Chicago 1998; letter from Abris Silberman of July 2, 1953, in curatorial file]; to E. and A. Silberman Galleries, New York [Breeskin 1970]; to Dr. John Jay Ireland, Chicago, July 2, 1953 [letter mentioned above]; bequeathed to the Art Institute, 1968.