Mother in Purple Holding her Child

The adult turns towards the child, but the child faces outward. Their heads are close, with the adult’s profile fitting beside the child’s rounded face. Below, a hand meets the small forearm, and blue-violet strokes spread through the adult’s clothing. Large areas of buff paper remain visible around the group.

Christie’s catalogued Mother in Purple Holding Her Child as a pastel drawn about 1914 on buff paper laid down on board. Its recorded measurements are 71.8 × 56.5 centimetres, and its Breeskin catalogue number is 603. ^[1]

The image combines a compact bodily arrangement with an openly worked surface. The heads and hands can be followed clearly, yet the marks around them break apart into slanting lines, broad deposits and exposed support. Cassatt makes the act of holding legible while allowing the viewer to remain aware of the separate strokes that construct it.

A profile beside an outward face

The adult occupies the left of the group. Her head turns right, bringing nose, mouth and chin into profile. Dark and reddish hair rises into a substantial gathered shape, with warmer yellow-orange accents near the crown. The profile is therefore framed by a dark mass that remains active with separate marks.

The child’s lighter head sits slightly higher to the right. Its eyes face outward, while short pale hair curves around the forehead and temples. Warm pink and cooler blue notes pass across the cheeks. The face is more frontal than the adult’s, making it the group’s clearest connection with the viewer.

These two orientations organise the image. The adult’s attention is directed towards the child; the child’s gaze extends beyond their immediate contact. We can recognise closeness without assuming a shared direction of looking. The child is supported within the group but remains visually available outside it.

The small space between the heads is particularly important. A narrow darker passage separates profile from cheek, allowing each outline to register. Their closeness does not erase the difference in shape. The adult’s angular profile and the child’s more rounded face provide two distinct rhythms at the top of the composition.

The hand that steadies the child

The child’s pale clothing and exposed arms occupy the right side. An adult hand reaches across the lower part of the group, meeting the child’s forearm. Fingers, sleeve and small arm overlap closely. This passage gives the act of holding a specific point of contact rather than leaving it implied by the title.

The adult’s forearm crosses diagonally beneath the child. It links the large blue-violet garment at the left with the pale body at the right. The direction of this arm helps carry the eye across the group and prevents the composition from dividing into two unrelated upright figures.

The child’s arms introduce smaller, partly opposing directions. One descends beside the torso; the other bends across it. Their shapes create interruptions within the pale clothing, and the holding hand gives a stable relation to these changes. The child’s position can be understood through a few well-placed overlaps.

The gesture also provides a useful counterweight to the faces. At the top, the relationship is established by the profile and outward gaze. Below, it is established by bodily support. Following the two together gives the image a circuit: from adult face to child, down through the small arms and back into the larger holding arm.

Purple, blue and the broad garment

The adult’s clothing supplies the strongest concentrated colour. Violet and vivid blue marks alternate with darker passages around the neckline and torso. Some run in long strokes down the sleeve; others cross in shorter, angular accents. The garment has a coherent shape, but its separate marks remain easy to see.

The title’s purple is therefore one part of a varied colour field. The clothing cannot be reduced to a single flat hue. Blue accents are especially conspicuous in the reproduction, while violet and dark strokes give different passages weight. These visible relationships are more useful than treating a title as a precise colour measurement.

The child’s pale garment also contains blue. Light strokes define its neckline and sides, with warmer pink and exposed paper visible between them. Shared blue notes connect the two figures, while the difference in density keeps adult clothing and child’s body distinct.

At the lower edge, the adult’s garment becomes more open. Long lines continue into areas where the paper remains visible. The image can therefore be followed as both a solid seated group and a changing distribution of marks. Colour gathers most strongly around some forms and loosens around others.

The exposed paper and sparse setting

The buff support occupies a substantial portion of the picture. Around the heads, diagonal grey, greenish and blue strokes give the field direction without filling it evenly. To the left, a pale upright passage and a horizontal light line suggest surrounding structure. A chair back appears behind the adult’s shoulder.

These details provide enough setting for the seated group without establishing an elaborate room. The chair’s darker angular form contrasts with the curved heads and arm. The pale horizontal accent gives the left side a firm interruption, while the looser strokes on the right keep the surrounding field less bounded.

The exposed paper does more than mark an absence of colour. It passes between strokes and connects otherwise separate areas of the image. Near a dense blue sleeve it reads as a broad surrounding field; around the child it becomes part of a more delicate interplay between light marks and warm support.

The description of buff paper comes from the catalogue, but a photograph cannot establish its exact original appearance. Nor does the open surface prove the pastel was unfinished. The useful visual question is how those areas operate beside the denser heads and clothing. Here, they make the group seem concentrated without enclosing every edge.

Pastel on paper backed by board

The catalogue’s medium distinguishes the drawn support from its backing: pastel is on paper, and the paper is laid down on board. That wording does not describe a pastel drawn directly on bare board, or establish when the backing was applied. It identifies the object’s recorded physical arrangement. ^[1]

Marjorie Shelley’s technical account of pastel explains its capacity for both blended modelling and distinct strokes. The range is useful for looking at this image, but it is general material context. It does not identify the particular pigments, fixative or mounting sequence of this sheet. ^[15]

The faces contain small, overlapping colour changes, while the clothing and background often show longer independent marks. Even within the child’s face, pink and blue passages remain visible. The picture’s coherence does not require a uniformly smooth surface. Contours, overlap and recurring colours allow the figures to emerge from varied handling.

That handling also cannot measure the duration of execution. A long, emphatic stroke may look spontaneous, but it does not supply a clock for the sitting. The image offers evidence of different kinds of description, rather than a complete account of the artist’s working pace or physical condition.

A late work within a varied practice

The approximate 1914 date places this pastel late in Cassatt’s career. It should not be used to support a claim that she then worked exclusively in pastel. Sotheby’s records Young Woman in Green, Outdoors in the Sun as an oil on canvas made about 1914. The two records establish that late work included more than one medium. ^{[1] [14]}

This matters to the way the surface is interpreted. Broad strokes and exposed support can be assessed as compositional choices before they are turned into evidence of decline. The image’s concentrated heads, diagonal arm and contrasting colour densities offer a coherent structure in their own right.

The pastel’s date is also approximate. It does not establish its place as the final work, or provide a precise sequence of pauses and recoveries in the artist’s life. Its particular achievement lies in the relation between an inward adult profile and an outward child, held together through colour and touch.

The recorded dealer history

Christie’s provenance names Galerie Paul Pétridès in Paris, then Wally Findlay Galleries in New York, from whom the family of the late owner acquired the work in 1962. That is the ownership history reported for the 2010 offering. It does not establish a present owner after that sale. ^[1]

The record does not identify the sitters or an original commission. Those questions remain separate from a chain of dealers and collectors. The title describes a mother holding her child, while the image supplies a specific arrangement of faces and hands. Neither alone recovers a family biography.

Mathilde: a reach beyond the group

Mathilde Holding a Baby Who Reaches out to the Right is a pastel dated about 1889 in Christie’s record. It shows an adult looking outward while a blue-clothed child turns and reaches towards the right, held across a lap within a wicker chair. ^[16]

The comparison clarifies the later picture’s compression. Mathilde’s child projects an arm towards the edge, making an outward movement beyond the chair. Here, the child’s face looks out but the arms remain closer to the body. A concentrated relation between profile, frontal face and holding hand replaces the longer directional reach.

The wicker chair also supplies a more extensive framework in the earlier image. Its uprights and curves help stabilise a body that leans away from the adult. In Mother in Purple, a smaller amount of surrounding structure leaves more emphasis on the overlapping bodies and exposed paper. These are different compositional solutions, rather than stages that need a single medical explanation.

Sleepy Baby: an inward resting head

The Dallas Museum of Art dates Sleepy Baby to about 1910 and records pastel on paper. Its scene brings a resting child’s head against the adult’s cheek and neck. The adult’s pale pink clothing and the closely cropped embrace create a different balance from the darker garment and outward face here. ^[17]

In the Dallas image, the child’s lowered head and closed eyes draw attention inward. The supporting hand lies across the small torso, while the pale clothing spreads around it. The image contains open marks, yet the bodily arrangement is compact and resting.

In Mother in Purple, the child’s visible eyes maintain an outward connection. Stronger blue-violet clothing anchors the adult, and the sparse surrounding support remains conspicuous. The comparison makes clear that a closely held child can produce different directions of attention. Cassatt’s late pastel joins the adult’s turned profile, the child’s outward gaze and a stabilising hand without making those three elements identical in purpose.