In the Omnibus

Two women sit side by side on a blue bench, with a pale-clothed baby supported on the lap at the right. Windows open onto a river and bridge behind them. The group nearly fills the vehicle’s width, bringing close bodies and a distant city view into one compact colour print.

The National Gallery of Art’s final impression of In the Omnibus, accession 1963.10.250, dates to 1890–91. It is colour drypoint, soft-ground etching and aquatint on laid paper, Mathews and Shapiro number 7, seventh state of seven. The plate measures 36.5 × 26.6 centimetres and the sheet 43 × 29.8 centimetres; the credit is the Chester Dale Collection. ^[1]

Three figures on a shared seat

The woman at the left wears a warm ochre garment and a broad hat. Her head turns towards the right, while her body remains comparatively upright. A gloved hand rests on the handle of a long narrow object descending towards the lower edge.

The second adult wears a pink dress with fuller upper sleeves. Her head inclines towards the child, bringing a downward movement into the group beside the more upright first figure. Her hands and forearms help establish the baby’s position on her lap.

The baby sits between the two adults in the overall composition, but is supported by the woman at the right. A large pale bonnet frames the small head. The light clothing forms a broad central shape against the warmer garments on either side.

Their differing gazes prevent the group from becoming a single repeated gesture. One adult looks outward across the space; the other looks down; the baby turns within the hold. Shared travel does not require all three to be attentive to the same thing.

The clothing can invite an interpretation of differing social roles, but it cannot establish a particular employer and nurse relationship. The print supplies no confirmed names, contract or family genealogy. The actual grouping is more secure than a detailed biography inferred from dress.

The blue bench and window divisions

The blue seat extends behind the figures and continues towards both sides. Its broad horizontal area brings the two adults into one shared space. The bodies interrupt it, leaving stretches visible around their shoulders and beside the skirts.

Above, window frames divide a long exterior view into smaller rectangles. The uprights rise behind the group, while horizontal bands run across the upper part. These firm divisions contrast with the changing curves of hats, sleeves and clothing.

A broad upper blind or panel creates another relatively quiet field above the windows. Its long sloping edge does not repeat the bench’s direction exactly. That slight difference helps the vehicle feel like an enclosing space rather than a completely flat grid behind the bodies.

The skirts fill much of the lower half. Long contours carry the adults down towards the floor, where the image is cropped close. The viewpoint offers no complete account of the vehicle’s doors, wheels or other passengers, keeping the scene concentrated on a selected part of the interior.

The child’s pale clothing interrupts these larger warm areas. It bridges the adult bodies visually without making their garments indistinguishable. Small lines establish folds and limbs where a broad colour field would otherwise be ambiguous.

The view beyond the windows

A bridge crosses the distant river, with repeated arches making a smaller rhythm beyond the window grid. Boats and bank forms appear through fine lines and restrained patches of colour. The exterior is much less densely occupied than the foreground figures.

This change of scale gives the print a second depth. Close sleeves and hats can be inspected as individual shapes, while distant forms are reduced to small indications. The windows connect the two without allowing the city view to overwhelm the passengers.

The view also introduces horizontal movement. The bridge extends across the composition behind upright heads and window divisions. It adds another route through the image, contrasting with the long downward sweep of the skirts.

The river setting does not certify a precise route, day or destination. Recognising a bridge and water is different from reconstructing an individual journey. The print can suggest public transport within a city while leaving the particular outing unspecified.

A drawing with more passengers

The National Gallery preserves a preparatory drawing in black chalk and graphite on wove paper, accession 1948.11.51.a. It measures 37.94 × 27.15 centimetres and is catalogued as Breeskin 804. This is a drawing associated with the print’s development, rather than another colour impression. ^[15]

In the drawing, the main adults and baby occupy the central lower area, but additional figures appear near the margins. A partly indicated person and hat occur towards the left, while another standing form occupies the right. The final print does not preserve the full surrounding group.

The drawing therefore records selection as well as preparation. Cassatt could consider a more crowded vehicle before concentrating the printed image on three figures. The omission changes the balance: the window structure and shared bench have more space around a smaller cast.

The orientation is also different. The adult holding the baby appears to the left in the principal drawing view, whereas the final print places that figure at the right. Comparing the actual arrangements makes reversal part of the work’s development rather than an accidental inconsistency between reproductions.

The reverse of the same sheet

The drawing’s reverse, accession 1948.11.51.b, bears transferred soft-ground material. It is the other side of the same physical sheet, with the same dimensions, rather than a second independent drawing. ^[16]

The National Gallery’s 2026 process account explains that Cassatt wrapped the drawing around a plate coated with soft ground and traced selected outlines. Material adhered to the paper’s reverse where pressure had been applied. The surviving reverse records that transfer activity. ^[17]

The simpler transferred view is particularly informative beside the fuller drawing. The main group and important structural lines remain, while the additional peripheral figures are not carried through in the same way. The artist’s selection can be considered through surviving evidence, rather than inferred only from the final image.

The reverse also differs from an edition print. A trace left during transfer is evidence of working procedure on a preparatory sheet. Its presence does not make the drawing itself another finished impression of the colour design.

A line proof: second state

A separate proof, accession 1946.21.93, is catalogued as drypoint with graphite on wove paper, second state of seven. Its plate measures 36.7 × 26.7 centimetres and its sheet 37.8 × 29.1 centimetres. Those are this proof’s measurements. ^[18]

The figures are outlined in the orientation familiar from the final print. Clothing folds, faces and window divisions are already visible, along with the river setting beyond. Without the final blue bench and warm dresses, linear description is more exposed.

The difference helps explain what colour later does. It does not simply replace an empty page with an image; a substantial design already exists in lines. Colour reorganises the balance among forms that can already be recognised.

The proof also prevents a misleading equation between lightness and incompleteness. An early printed sheet can contain considerable information about bodies and setting while remaining much less filled with tone than another stage.

An early colour proof without a verified state number

The colour impression accession 1943.3.2753 combines drypoint, soft-ground etching and aquatint on laid paper. It is useful as a colour trial, but its exact state number is left unspecified here. Its position among illustrations should not be converted into an assumed third-state label. ^[19]

Blue already fills the bench, and warm colours distinguish the adults’ garments. The child remains a large pale presence between them. The exterior windows, however, are largely blank compared with the final scene’s river, bridge and banks.

This changes the spatial balance. With less exterior information, the figures and vehicle occupy more of the viewer’s attention. The window rectangles remain, but they do not yet carry the same detailed relationship between inside and outside visible in the finished colour image.

The proof consequently makes a useful comparison without a numbered place being invented for it. An identified physical object and its visible features can contribute to understanding even where one catalogue detail remains unresolved.

A grey proof: fourth state

The National Gallery’s accession 1943.3.2752 is drypoint and aquatint on wove paper, fourth state of seven. It is a distinct tonal proof, not a colour photograph converted to grey. ^[20]

The bench and upper parts contain stronger grey areas, while the river and bridge are described beyond the windows. The pale figures stand out against a darker seat, allowing the relationship between body outline and surrounding tone to be examined without the warm dress colours.

The exterior now plays a clearer role than in the largely blank-window colour proof. Small river lines and distant forms create another depth behind the passengers. The contrast shows why development cannot be summarised as a simple movement from no colour to colour.

Different kinds of trial can answer different questions. A tonal version can clarify relationships of light and dark, while a colour version can test how hues distinguish bodies and furniture. The surviving sheets offer evidence of both.

A later colour proof: sixth state

Accession 1943.3.2764 is a colour impression on laid paper, catalogued as the sixth state of seven. Its plate measures 36.51 × 26.67 centimetres and its sheet 44.1 × 27.2 centimetres, distinct from the final Chester Dale sheet. ^[21]

In the reproduced later proof, the child’s face carries a more noticeable warm tone than in the pictured final impression. The surrounding dresses, blue bench and exterior are substantially developed. The comparison draws attention to a relatively small area within an already coherent scene.

That observation belongs to these particular images. It should not become a claim that every sixth-state or final-state impression has precisely the same visible colour under every condition. Paper, inking, photography and the individual object all matter to how comparisons are made.

The final image presents the child as a relatively pale central shape, with small facial accents. This makes the child’s clothing and exposed face more closely related in tone, while outlines retain the distinction between features, bonnet and body.

Six objects, seven views

The preparatory sheet has two sides. Together with four proofs and the final impression, it produces seven useful views of six physical objects. Counting the reverse as another independent drawing would misdescribe the surviving evidence.

The state numbers also belong to a particular catalogue system. The final is seventh of seven in Mathews and Shapiro; individual earlier proofs retain their own designations. The unverified colour proof need not be forced into an apparent gap.

An impression is an individual printed sheet, while a state identifies a stage of a worked design. Several impressions may share one state. Dimensions, marks and collecting history still belong to each physical object rather than to every example bearing the same title.

These distinctions make the sequence more informative. The sheets reveal choices about figures, transfer, exterior space, tone and colour. They do not require every surviving object to stand for one equal, evenly spaced step in a universal recipe.

The edition and printer inscription

The final Chester Dale impression carries a lower-margin inscription recording an edition of twenty-five and printing by the artist with M. Leroy. The wording belongs to this sheet and is recorded in the National Gallery’s inscription field. ^[1]

The credit connects the finished object with collaborative printing work. It should not disappear behind an account concerned only with the design. A colour impression depends on both the worked image and the practical production of its printed surfaces.

The National Gallery places the project within Cassatt’s wider technical experimentation. The Degas and Cassatt discussion provides professional context, but this particular sequence does not prove that Degas executed or supervised each stage. The surviving drawing and proofs remain evidence for Cassatt’s own process. ^[17]

The Letter: another kind of evidence

The Letter places one woman at a writing desk with an envelope held to her mouth. The National Gallery’s colour sheet 1943.3.2763 is the fourth and final state, distinct from the seventh-state Omnibus design. ^[6]

The Met preserves a separate black drypoint first-state impression of The Letter, accession 16.3.2. Its early image already contains garment decoration and furniture outlines, before the fuller colour and wallpaper arrangement. ^[22]

That first-and-final comparison is valuable, but it offers a different selection of evidence from the drawing, reverse and multiple proofs available for In the Omnibus. The two designs do not establish one fixed sequence followed identically across the Set of Ten.

Their subjects also organise attention differently. The correspondence print gathers the action near one face and two hands. The omnibus group distributes looking and contact among three people, with windows connecting them to a public city space. The technical evidence enriches these differences rather than replacing the visible scenes with a list of procedures.