In the Loge

1878

Oil on canvas, 81.3 × 66 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

A woman in black leans forward in a theater box and aims her opera glasses across the hall. Cassatt makes the act of looking the real subject.

Renoir and Degas painted women in theater boxes as attractive objects on display. Cassatt's woman does the looking herself, a new turn on a favorite Impressionist subject.
Shown in Boston in 1878, the first Impressionist painting by Cassatt seen in America.
The theater is the Comédie-Française during an afternoon show, so she wears a day dress.
Look at the upper left, where a man in another box trains his glasses on her.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, bought it in 1910.

Parisians went to the theater as much for the audience as for the show. A box put its occupants on view to the whole house.

Themes

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain