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The Stocking

The Stocking
Etching with drypoint | c. 1890
Image size: 10.125" x 7.375"
Fifth state of six | Edition of 25 | Signed in pencil by the artist

In The Stocking, Mary Cassatt captures a quiet, tender moment between a young woman and an infant—a scene that speaks to the universal themes of motherhood, care, and domestic intimacy that define much of her most celebrated work.

Executed in 1890, this exquisite composition shows a seated woman gently dressing a child, pulling on a stocking with maternal attentiveness. The gestures are soft yet purposeful, rendered with the fluid elegance of Cassatt’s expert draftsmanship. Through the combined techniques of etching and drypoint, she achieves a remarkable sense of depth and softness—enhanced by the rich burr of the drypoint line and the subtle tonal gradations.

This impression is from the fifth state of six, printed in a rare edition of just 25, and signed in pencil by Cassatt herself. It belongs to the artist’s mature printmaking period, when she was deeply engaged in exploring the expressive potential of black-and-white media. Influenced by both Degas and Japanese printmaking, Cassatt created works that felt both timeless and groundbreaking—offering a woman’s perspective rarely seen in 19th-century art.

Significance:

Signed impressions from Cassatt’s hand-pulled print editions are exceptionally scarce and highly desirable.

The Stocking showcases her dual strengths: the technical finesse of an etcher and the emotional intelligence of a portraitist.

Works like this embody the Impressionist interest in private, unguarded moments, but filtered through Cassatt’s uniquely maternal and modern lens.

A deeply moving and historically significant work by one of the most important women artists of the 19th century—The Stocking is both a rare treasure and a timeless image of care and connection.

SKU: M-CASSAT-101499 Artist: Tag:
Nicole Wolff
Gallery Director

Mary Stevenson Cassatt (May 22, 1844 – June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France where she befriended Edgar Degas and exhibited with the Impressionists. Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children.

From 1860 to 1862, she studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. By 1865, she had convinced her parents to let her study in Paris, where she took private lessons from leading academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme, copied works of the old masters, and went sketching. She stayed in Courance and Écouen and studied with Édouard Frère and Paul Soyer. In 1868, Cassatt’s painting The Mandolin Player (private collection) was accepted at the Paris Salon, the first time her work was represented there. After three-and-a-half years in France, the Franco-Prussian War interrupted Cassatt’s studies and she returned to Philadelphia in the late summer of 1870.

Cassatt returned to Europe in 1871. She spent eight months in Parma, Italy, in 1872, studying the paintings of Correggio and Parmigianino and working with the advice of Carlo Raimondi, head of the department of engraving at the Parma Academy. In 1873, she visited Spain, Belgium, and Holland to study and copy the works of Velázquez, Rubens, and Hals. In June 1874, Cassatt settled in Paris, where she began to show regularly in the Salons, and where her parents and sister Lydia joined her in 1877. That same year, Edgar Degas invited her to join the group of independent artists later known as the Impressionists. The only American officially associated with the group, Cassatt exhibited in four of their eight exhibitions, in 1879, 1880, 1881, and 1886. Under their influence, Cassatt revised her technique, composition, and use of color and light, manifesting her admiration for the works of the French avant-garde, especially Degas and Manet. Degas, her chief mentor, provided criticism of her work, offered advice on technique, and encouraged her experiments in printmaking. Like Degas, she was chiefly interested in figure compositions. During the late 1870s and early 1880s, the subjects of her works were her family (especially her sister Lydia), the theater, and the opera. Later she made a specialty of the mother and child theme, which she treated with warmth and naturalness in paintings, pastels, and prints.

Cassatt’s role as an advisor to art collectors benefited many public and private collections in the United States. From her early days in Paris, she encouraged the collection of old masters and the French avant-garde. In 1901, she accompanied Mr. and Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer on a collecting trip in Italy and Spain. Cassatt had known Mrs. Havemeyer before her marriage. In 1873, she had encouraged the then seventeen-year-old Louisine Elder to buy a pastel by Degas, and the two women became close friends. Cassatt was eventually instrumental in shaping the Havemeyer collection, most of which is now in the Metropolitan Museum.

Failing eyesight severely curtailed Cassatt’s work after 1900. She gave up printmaking in 1901, and in 1904 stopped painting. She spent most of the war years in Grasse and died in 1926 at her country home, Château de Beaufresne, at Le Mesnil-Théribus, Oise.

She was described by Gustave Geffroy as one of "les trois grandes dames" (the three great ladies) of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot. In 1879, Diego Martelli compared her to Degas, as they both sought to depict movement, light, and design in the most modern sense.