Paris, 1863–1906

Mary Cassatt

Little Girl in a Blue Armchair

1878

Oil on canvas, 35 1/4 × 51 in. National Gallery of Art, Washington

Mary Cassatt (American, 1844–1926). Look at the big blue shapes of the chairs: they fill the room and crowd the girl.

Look at

• Blue armchairs and a sofa make large, rounded shapes across the canvas.
• The gray floor is a plain, open shape between the chairs.
• Quick, loose strokes of red, green and white mark the pattern on the chairs.
• Her slumped body makes a long diagonal down the chair.

• Cassatt wrote that Degas helped with it; he probably painted part of the background.

Image: National Gallery of Art Open Access · CC0