Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Etruscan Gallery
Edgar Degas·1874
Historical Context
The Etruscan gallery version of Degas's Cassatt at the Louvre was produced at the same moment as the paintings gallery version, around 1879–1880, with Cassatt here seen from behind before the Etruscan vitrines. The back view — a motif Degas deployed repeatedly to create a figure simultaneously present and psychologically inaccessible — becomes particularly pointed in a portrait of a painter: we see her looking without seeing what she sees. The canvas is one of several works in which Degas explored the Louvre as a social and intellectual space.
Technical Analysis
The arrangement of Cassatt and her companion before the low display cases creates a strong horizontal rhythm of figures and objects across the picture plane. Degas uses the gallery's pale stone and glass surfaces to create an ambient, diffused light quite different from the staged illumination of his theatre scenes, the whole constructed from cool neutrals punctuated by the dark mass of Cassatt's coat.
