Feeding the Ducks

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Feeding the Ducks

Artist Mary Cassatt (American, 1844-1926)

Date1895

Dimensionssheet: 15 1/4 x 19 5/8 in. (38.7 x 49.8 cm);
Plate: 11 5/8 x 15 1/2 in. (29.5 x 39.3 cm)

MediumDrypoint, Aquatint and softground etching, printed in colors

ClassificationPrints

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number

1945.40

Not on View

Label TextAmerican artist Mary Cassatt created her first color etchings spurred by an 1890 exhibition of Japanese prints. She made Feeding the Ducks a few years later, following her purchase of a country house north of Paris. Setting up her printing press in a studio at the edge of a long pool, she posed her models in a small boat. She would explore repeatedly the image of the modern mother and child;, here two fashionably dressed women with a child form a vision of collaborative mothering. Together the women seem to guide the child toward an understanding of kindness, generosity, and nurturing. Creating luminously-colored, wash-like effects, Cassatt imparts a visual richness and emotional warmth to the scene.Published ReferencesMatthews, Nancy Mowll and Barbara Stern Shapiro, Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints, New York and Williamstown, 1989, pp. 174-178, cat no. 18, fourth state.Exhibition HistoryFindlay, Ohio, Findlay College, A Group of 30 Prints lent by The Toledo Museum of Art<\i>, 1955.
Toledo Museum of Art, The Painter Was a Printmaker June 23 - Sept. 9, 1984.

Mansfield, Ohio, Mansfield Art Center, The American figure: Vanderlyn to Bellows, 1984, no. 14, repr.

Toledo Museum of Art, Americans Abroad: Etching and the European Scene, Dec. 10, 1977 - May 10,1978.

Toledo Museum of Art, Strong Sensations: Impressionism and Symbolist Works on Paper, 1860-1900, April 23-June 20 2010 (no cat.).

Toledo Museum of Art, Looks Good on Paper: Masterworks and Favorites, Oct. 10, 2014-Jan. 11, 2015.