Artwork Images
Photo:
Controls
Woman Standing, Holding a Fan
Object Details
-
Date
1878-1879
-
Object Type
Paintings
-
Medium
Distemper with metallic paint on canvas
-
Dimensions
50 5/8 x 27 3/4 x 1 1/4 in.
-
Inscriptions
Recto:
signed l.l.: Mary Cassatt
-
Credit Line
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Acquisition in honor of Ruth Carter Stevenson and the 50th Anniversary of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art with funds provided by Anne T. and Robert M. Bass, The Walton Family Foundation, Marsland and Richard W. Moncrief, and the Council
-
Accession Number
2011.20
-
Copyright
Public domain
Object Description
Cassatt likely executed this work as she prepared for the impressionists’ fourth group show in Paris in 1879. At the time, she and the artist Edgar Degas were experimenting together with distemper, a challenging medium that gives paintings a matte surface finish. Cassatt abandoned distemper after 1879, making this one of only two known paintings that she created with this technique.
Cassatt and Degas were friends, peers, and competitors, and Woman Standing exemplifies how they exchanged ideas, techniques, and motifs. When Degas encouraged his fellow impressionists to make handpainted fans, a popular fashion accessory, Cassatt incorporated fans into her paintings, giving them luster with touches of metallic paint. But she chose not to decorate actual fans. Her decision may have stemmed from the negative connotations of fan making, which, when practiced by women, was treated as an amateur craft rather than a fine art.
—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023).
Additional details
Location: On view
See more by Mary S. Cassatt
Tags
-
What things might an artist consider when choosing one medium over another?
How might the background, clothes, facial expression, and body language depicted in a portrait reveal something about the sitter?
How might the style and depiction of the subject reveal something about the artist who created the painting?
How might the style, color palette, and composition affect the mood of a work of art?
Share Educator Resources
Amon Carter Disclaimer
This information is published from the Carter's collection database. Updates and additions based on research and imaging activities are ongoing. The images, titles, and inscriptions are products of their time and are presented here as documentation, not as a reflection of the Carter’s values. If you have corrections or additional information about this object please email us to help us improve our records.
Every effort has been made to accurately determine the rights status of works and their images. Please email us if you have further information on the rights status of a work contrary or in addition to the information in our records.
Related Works
-
Green Nude, ca. 1918-1924
Gaston Lachaise
Crayon on paper
2018.4 -
Amon G. Carter, 2008
Scott Gentling
Acrylic on canvas
2008.14 -
Drawing No. 18, 1919
Georgia O'Keeffe
Charcoal on paper
1997.2 -
Roseate Spoonbill, ca. 1980-85
Scott Gentling, Stuart Gentling
Graphite, opaque and transparent watercolor on paper
2018.26 -
Weeping Beech, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn, 2011
Mitch Epstein
Gelatin silver print
P2012.13 -
Martha Graham - Letter to the World (Swirl), 1940
Barbara Morgan
Gelatin silver print
P1974.21.17 -
World's Greatest Comics, 1946
Ben Shahn
Tempera on panel
1974.24 -
Untitled, ca. 1940-1943
Arthur Dove
Mixed media
1987.69 -
Untitled #52, 2002
Laura Letinsky
Dye coupler print
P2007.3