2-745-940 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

The Visitor (recto); The Visitor (verso), c. 1881. Like Knitting in the Library and After-Dinner Coffee, this is a working drawing for an etching. The slanted silhouette of the young woman framed against the verticals and horizontals of the window, a seated figure in profile in the lower left quadrant of the composition, and dramatic contrasts of sunlight and shadow have precedents in Degas's Mary Cassatt at the Louvre, the Etruscan Gallery. However, the care, delicacy, and sensitivity with which the visitor's face was drawn are entirely characteristic of Cassatt's close observation of her models.