Mother’s Kiss

An adult bends towards a child seated across her lap, bringing the two faces together. Hands and arms make a compact structure around the small body, while a floral dress spreads below. Above them, a broad lightly coloured field remains almost unoccupied. The embrace is concentrated low in a much taller image.

The National Gallery of Art dates Mother’s Kiss to 1890–91. Its Chester Dale Collection impression, accession 1963.10.254, is colour drypoint, soft-ground etching and aquatint on laid paper, Mathews and Shapiro number 11, fifth state of five. The plate measures 34.6 × 22.7 centimetres and the sheet 43.3 × 30.1 centimetres. This is a print, distinct from Cassatt’s similarly titled pastels and oils. ^[1]

The embrace within the full composition

The group does not fill the image evenly. The adult’s dark hair begins well below the top, with a large open area extending above. The child’s head sits still lower, close to the meeting of the two faces.

This distribution matters to the scale of the action. The faces are small in relation to the whole printed field, yet the strong dark hair and concentrated contours make them easy to find. Their contact does not require the surrounding space to be crowded with furniture.

The open upper field also changes how the leaning body is perceived. The figure bends into the child rather than rising upright towards the top. The remaining space makes that downward and inward movement especially apparent.

A close crop of the faces would show the kiss but lose this relationship. The full image offers both intimacy and distance: a compact bodily event occupies part of a larger, quieter field. Neither level should replace the other when discussing the design.

The upper area is not evidence of missing paint, damage or an unfinished scene. Its openness is a visible feature of the composition. A condition history would need separate evidence, rather than being inferred from a low density of marks.

The two faces

The adult’s head inclines down and towards the right. Dark hair is gathered into a rounded form, with closely spaced marks giving it more density than the pale face below. The child’s head tilts up towards that face.

The mouths meet within a small cluster of nose, cheek and chin. Fine outlines carry much of the description, leaving the exposed skin comparatively light. The relationship can be understood without extensive shadow modelling across either face.

The two heads also differ in size and orientation. The larger dark hair mass curves over the child, while the smaller head remains visible beside it. The adult’s lean encloses the meeting without completely hiding the child’s features.

The title identifies a maternal kiss, but does not certify the models’ biological relationship. A represented mother-and-child scene and a documented family portrait are different kinds of claim. The gesture is clear even though the individuals remain unnamed.

Hands and the shared contour

One adult hand supports the child near the side of the torso, with long fingers extending down. Another supporting passage lies beneath the small body on the lap. These contacts make the hold practical as well as expressive.

The child’s bent arm rises towards the adult’s face and neck. It adds an answering movement to the adult’s downward inclination. The embrace is therefore built from several related directions rather than from the touching mouths alone.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts draws attention to a particularly economical contour: one line helps delineate both the adult’s left hand and the child’s left upper arm. The museum interprets this shared boundary as reinforcing their closeness. That is its formal reading of the design. ^[15]

Following the line is more useful than assuming that every adjacent limb must be separated by a new dark boundary. Cassatt lets some forms share a contour while other fingers, elbows and garment edges remain distinct. The group stays readable through a selective use of line.

The result concentrates contact in a small area. The hand at the torso, the raised arm and the adjoining faces connect the bodies at several points. Their proximity is visible without inventing a conversation or a particular family occasion.

Bent knees across the lap

The child’s lower body lies across the floral skirt. A raised bent knee projects towards the left, while another lower leg drops farther down. The unequal positions make the child’s body feel changeable rather than like an upright column.

The leg contours are particularly clear against the patterned dress. Pale skin remains relatively uninterrupted, while small coloured motifs continue around it. The contrast helps separate body from cloth even where their larger shapes overlap closely.

The adult’s lap supplies a broad support beneath this movement. Its curve extends towards the right, giving the lower composition a substantial base. The body above bends inward, while the skirt below expands outward.

This combination keeps the embrace from becoming a self-contained pair of heads. The kiss depends on a supported child with bent limbs and a seated adult whose larger body receives the weight. The lower arrangement is integral to the action.

Floral fabric and the green chair

Small green and warmer floral marks pass across the pale dress. Their scale is much smaller than the broad skirt shape, so they animate the garment without replacing its overall form. Fine lines indicate seams or folds among the scattered motifs.

At the left, a narrow green chair area rises behind the adult. Warmer decoration interrupts it, creating another patterned surface beside the sleeve. The chair remains partial, with much of it hidden by the figure.

The limited furniture is enough to establish a seat. No broad room description competes with the embrace, and the upper field remains comparatively quiet. Pattern is concentrated where it can distinguish clothing and support near the bodies.

The dress also links upper and lower parts. Similar motifs appear at the shoulder and across the lap, connecting the adult’s bent torso with the larger fabric field beneath the child. The pattern helps the seated body remain continuous through its changing directions.

Two museums, separate sheets

The National Museum of Women in the Arts holds another impression, a gift of John and Linda Comstock in memory of Abigail Pearson Van Vleck. Its record provides a separate collection history and a useful interpretation of the shared contour. It is not the same physical sheet as the National Gallery’s Chester Dale example. ^[15]

The distinction matters when discussing paper, margins and dimensions. The National Gallery explicitly separates plate and sheet measurements. A measurement supplied without that distinction by another record should not be silently converted into an exact plate size.

The two reproduced impressions show the same basic embrace and open field, while their photographed colour balance differs. This does not by itself establish fading, original paper hue or an identical quantity of ink across all examples. Those questions require more specific examination.

A collection credit also does not identify the models. The Comstock gift and Chester Dale credit concern later ownership of printed objects, rather than the family relationship represented within them.

Catalogue numbers and the final state

Mathews and Shapiro’s designation is number 11, fifth state of five. The National Gallery bibliography also cites Breeskin number 149, fourth of four. These are different cataloguing systems, so the state totals should be identified with their respective sources. ^[1]

Number 11 is a catalogue design number. It does not mean an eleventh printing plate or the eleventh impression within an edition. Likewise, a fifth-state designation describes a stage of the worked design, not a count of all surviving sheets.

The Chester Dale impression’s lower margin records an edition of twenty-five and printing by the artist with M. Leroy. That inscription belongs to the particular sheet. It connects the image with collaborative printing work without making every museum example physically interchangeable. ^[1]

The National Gallery also records this sheet in the 1998–99 Modern Woman exhibition as number 62, under The Kiss, shown only in Washington. The venue qualification matters: the exhibition’s larger itinerary does not mean that this impression appeared at every stop. ^[1]

An 1891 colour-print project

The National Museum of Women in the Arts places Mother’s Kiss in Cassatt’s group of ten colour prints intended for exhibition at Durand-Ruel in 1891. It relates the group to Japanese prints Cassatt had seen in Paris the previous year, particularly their compressed space and restrained modelling. ^[15]

That context helps explain why line, pattern and relatively flat colour deserve attention. It does not identify one exact Japanese prototype for this embrace. The specific arrangement of hands, knees, faces and open field remains central to the work itself.

The large empty-looking upper area is particularly useful in that discussion. It allows a concentrated figure group to occupy only part of the printed space, while the garment’s motifs provide activity below. The image’s emotional reading emerges through this formal economy rather than a detailed surrounding narrative.

Maternal Kiss: a different pastel

Philadelphia’s Maternal Kiss, catalogued as Mother and Child (Maternal Kiss), dates to 1896. It is a pastel on wove paper, accession 1952-82-11, a separate work from the earlier colour print. ^[16]

In that image, the adult’s back and ochre sleeve occupy a substantial foreground area. The child’s face looks outward while the adult’s face approaches from the side. The arrangement presents contact through a different distribution of visible faces and clothing.

The colour print instead places the heads low within the full field and turns the child towards the adult. Bent legs cross a patterned lap, while the broad space above remains open. Similar titles do not erase those differences or make the media interchangeable.

Maternal Caress: an upright child

Maternal Caress is another colour print of 1890–91. The Met’s impression, accession 16.2.5, is printed from three plates and catalogued as the sixth and final state. It is a distinct design, with its own development and title history. ^[17]

The child is held more upright, with the back prominent and an arm reaching around the adult’s neck. An orange surrounding field and broad dress shape enclose the pair differently. The bodies occupy more of that composition than the low group under the open upper field of Mother’s Kiss.

The comparison shifts attention from a general theme of affection to the actual construction of each embrace. An upright back and encircling arm produce one relationship; bent knees across a lap and a meeting of faces produce another. Both also remain separate from the later three-figure oil The Caress.