The Visitor (verso)

c. 1881

The Visitor (verso), c. 1881. Mary Cassatt (American, 1844–1926). Soft ground lines transferred from etching plate; sheet: 40 x 30.9 cm (15 3/4 x 12 3/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Fifty Members of The Print Club of Cleveland on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary 1966.176.b Mary Cassatt produced this sheet as a working drawing for an etching of the same title. She framed the subject's slanted silhouette against the verticals and horizontals of the window, and featured a seated figure in profile in the lower left quadrant of the composition. The bold, dramatic contrasts of sunlight and shadow throughout the room contrast with the delicacy and sensitivity with which the visitor's face were drawn by Cassatt from direct observation.