Head of a Young Girl
Mary Cassatt·1874
Historical Context
Head of a Young Girl (1874, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) belongs to Cassatt's early career, before her full embrace of Impressionism, when she was developing her skills as a portraitist and exploring the conventions of academic figure study. The single-head study was a standard exercise in academic training, and Cassatt's application of the format to a young female subject reflects her interest in the intimate scale and psychological directness that would define her mature portraiture. The 1874 date places this work just before her decisive encounters with the Impressionist circle.
Technical Analysis
The intimate head study format concentrates all formal attention on the face and its expressive details. At this early stage Cassatt's handling is more conventionally academic than her mature work, with careful tonal modeling and controlled brushwork. The direct, close observation of a specific child's features presages her later child portraiture.
