CASSATT, Mary
(b. 1844, Allegheny City, d. 1926, Le Mesnil-Théribus, Oise)

Lady at the Tea Table

1885
Oil on canvas, 74 x 61 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Domestic scenes, especially those including women and children, were Cassatt's speciality. She used the high-key palette characteristic of Impressionism to create pictures of great naturalism and warmth but without cloying sentimentalism. In the present picture she has portrayed her mother's cousin, Mrs. Robert Moore Riddle, in a painting that was intended to be a thank-you gift for hospitality received in London.