The Letter

A woman brings an envelope to her mouth, holding it with both hands above a blue writing surface. The blue returns in her patterned garment, while small flowers and leaves cover the wall behind. A tall brown piece of furniture closes the right side. Cassatt makes a brief act of correspondence part of an intricate arrangement of lines, patterns and colour.

The National Gallery of Art dates The Letter to 1890–91. Its Rosenwald Collection impression, accession 1943.3.2763, is colour drypoint, soft-ground etching and aquatint, catalogued as Mathews and Shapiro number 8, fourth state of four. The plate measures 36.6 × 22.6 centimetres; the larger sheet measures 47.7 × 30.8 centimetres. Those measurements describe this particular impression. ^[1]

The envelope at the face

The woman’s head bends towards the envelope. Her dark hair forms a rounded shape above the forehead, with smaller curled marks close to the face. The eyes are lowered, and the mouth meets the edge of the paper in the action generally understood as moistening its flap.

The hands approach from either side. Fingers at the right hold one edge, while the other hand supports the paper nearer the lower left. The envelope occupies the space between them, giving the two gestures a common purpose rather than leaving the raised hands unconnected.

The action is specific but brief. It belongs to preparing correspondence rather than simply reading a sheet or writing with a visible pen. The paper has already been brought close to the face, concentrating attention on a small contact within a much larger patterned figure.

Its pale surface also provides a pause. Hair, garment and wallpaper contain many small marks, whereas the envelope offers a comparatively uninterrupted shape. That difference lets a modest object become prominent without making it the largest or darkest part of the image.

No message is legible. The print does not identify a recipient, the contents of a letter or a romantic relationship. It can make correspondence visually compelling while leaving the actual words and their intended reader outside the scene.

A second pale rectangle

Another pale sheet or envelope lies on the blue writing surface. Its angle differs from the paper at the woman’s mouth, linking the small raised action with the larger desktop below. The two light forms are related without becoming identical in position or function.

The lower rectangle also helps explain the surface beneath it. Its straight edges sit within the broader angled blue plane, giving the viewer a small, manageable shape through which to recognise the desk’s orientation.

It should not be treated as a decipherable second message. A visible paper object does not establish whether it is a finished letter, spare sheet or another envelope. The important compositional relationship is secure even where its exact use remains open.

The repeated paleness creates another link with the face and hands. These smaller light areas are distributed through the upper figure and desktop. Against the stronger blue and brown, they keep attention moving between the act and its immediate setting.

The blue garment and pale front

Blue covers much of the woman’s seated body. Pale motifs interrupt it across sleeve, skirt and shoulder, making the clothing one of the richest patterned areas. The individual shapes vary rather than forming an absolutely even grid.

The pattern follows a body already established by contour. A sleeve curves towards the raised hand; the shoulder slopes beside the neck; the skirt spreads below the desk. Decorative marks occupy those areas without replacing the larger shapes that identify a seated person.

At the chest, a paler vertically lined front separates the two blue sides. Its direction differs from the scattered motifs around it. The contrast helps the torso remain legible within an otherwise visually busy garment.

The neckline sits close beneath the face, while the darker outer collar opens towards the hands. This arrangement concentrates several changes of material and shape within a small area: skin, pale front, blue patterned fabric and envelope.

The face does not need dense shading to stand apart. Fine outlines and a few darker features work beside much larger colour areas. The contrast between a lightly described face and a richly patterned garment becomes one of the print’s defining relationships.

The angled writing surface

The desktop projects from the tall furniture at the right. Its outer brown border makes a strong diagonal across the lower figure, while the blue surface extends behind it. The plane seems to enter the space between viewer and seated woman.

The diagonal is particularly noticeable beside the furniture’s upright edge. One leads across the body; the other rises through most of the right side. Their meeting gives the interior a clear structure even though little of the floor or wider room appears.

The writing surface also conceals part of the skirt. The garment continues below and beyond it, but the furniture interrupts the view. This overlap gives a sense of near and far without requiring deep shadows across every adjoining form.

Blue connects the desk covering and the garment, yet the two remain distinguishable. The covering is comparatively broad and unpatterned; the clothing contains pale motifs and curved boundaries. Repeated colour becomes a means of relation rather than a reason to merge separate objects.

The tall brown area adds another contrast. Its long relatively uninterrupted surface differs from the scattered flowers on the wall and the garment’s pattern. The furniture supplies a strong vertical pause within a composition dense with smaller incidents.

Wallpaper around the head

Small leaves and flowers spread across the background. Green and muted warmer forms repeat over a pale field, extending above the head and towards the furniture. Their repetition establishes a decorated wall without requiring a fully described room.

The scale differs from the clothing motifs. Both are patterned surfaces, but one surrounds the figure and the other follows the body. The hair and face sit between them, providing a more concentrated area of dark and pale shapes.

Some wallpaper marks are close to the head’s boundary. They make the surrounding space active without becoming hair or clothing. Following the outline of the head helps separate these neighbouring patterns and reveals how economically the figure is placed among them.

The wallpaper also extends into the upper part, where no body interrupts it. This larger field balances the more crowded lower half of hands, garment and desktop. Pattern can therefore create space as well as fill it.

The effect is neither an empty background nor an evenly detailed interior. Cassatt concentrates information in selected planes: clothing, wall, desk and tall furniture. Their different patterns and boundaries organise the scene around a compact bodily action.

A separate first-state impression

The Met owns a black drypoint impression, accession 16.3.2, which it identifies as the first of four states and the only known impression of that first state. It was a gift of Arthur Sachs in 1916. The museum gives one plate, 34.4 × 22.7 centimetres, and a sheet of 34.6 × 23.2 centimetres. This is a separate physical object from the final colour sheet at the National Gallery. ^[2]

In the early image, the head, hands and envelope are already clearly established. The garment’s decorative outlines are also present, together with the angled desk and upright furniture edges. It would be inaccurate to describe the first version as a figure without any surrounding structure or dress pattern.

The space around those outlines is much more open than in the colour impression. Without the large blue and brown fields and the developed wallpaper pattern, the line drawing receives greater attention. The woman’s action can be recognised before the final colour relationships are in place.

The comparison shows a change in emphasis as well as an addition of colour. In the early proof, separate lines describe the garment motifs. In the final image, pale forms within the blue garment work through a stronger contrast of filled and unfilled areas.

The two images do not reveal every intermediate operation. Seeing the beginning and final state establishes visible differences, but does not give access to each trial, adjustment or decision between them. A sequence needs its own surviving evidence rather than a reconstruction from what seems plausible.

Drypoint and the museum’s burr explanation

The Met explains the early impression’s textured lines in relation to drypoint burr: the raised metal created beside a line scratched into copper can hold ink and produce a rich printed effect. This is the museum’s account of the process and appearance. ^[2]

That explanation helps distinguish a printed line from a pencil mark on the sheet. The visible image has been transferred from a worked plate. The paper carries ink resulting from that process, rather than simply bearing the original scratched design itself.

It does not follow that a reproduction permits microscopic inspection of the burr. The printed appearance can be discussed with the museum’s explanation while the surviving plate surface, exact tool pressure and wear remain separate questions.

The final National Gallery record names drypoint, soft-ground etching and aquatint together. Its medium describes a combination rather than one technique enlarged into an explanation of every passage. The early one-plate black impression should retain its own narrower description. ^[1]

State, impression and sheet

A state describes a stage in a print’s development, while an impression is an individual sheet printed from the worked matrix. Several impressions can belong to one state. A final-state designation therefore does not mean that only one physical example exists.

The distinction matters particularly here. The National Gallery’s fourth-state Rosenwald sheet and the Met’s first-state Sachs sheet have different accessions, dimensions and collecting histories. Their shared design connects them, but does not make their physical records interchangeable.

Plate and sheet measurements answer different questions as well. The plate dimensions describe the printing matrix’s scale; the sheet includes the paper beyond it. A border around the image should not silently become part of the depicted room or a new measurement of the design.

Other museums hold further colour impressions. Their paper, margins and measurements require their own records. Differences between separately photographed sheets cannot automatically establish fading, repair or a changed state of the plate.

The Set of Ten and shared printing work

The National Gallery’s 2026 account places The Letter within Cassatt’s Set of Ten, developed in 1890–91 after her encounter with Japanese colour woodcuts. It describes her work with the printer Modeste Leroy and the demands of combining colour printing with etched and scratched lines. ^[15]

The relationship concerns a group of prints and a broader encounter with another tradition. It does not identify a particular Japanese image as the exact source for this woman and envelope. Similarities of flat colour, outline and pattern can be considered without inventing an unverified prototype.

The project also involved practical printing decisions. Different inks and worked surfaces had to produce a coherent image on paper. The final scene’s apparent ease should not be mistaken for proof that it was reached in a single operation.

Artist and printer have related but distinct roles in that work. A general account of collaboration does not make every physical impression identical in its credits or require the same plate count for every design. The named records and actually preserved proofs remain the basis for a precise account.

The Fitting

The Fitting offers another relationship between everyday activity and patterned space. The Met’s colour impression, accession 16.2.8, is the seventh and final state, printed from three plates. A standing woman in a pale patterned gown appears beside a kneeling figure in a darker dress, with a mirror repeating the standing body. ^[16]

The visible work is distributed between two people. One stands while another attends to the garment near the floor. In The Letter, a single seated figure performs the central action, and the desk supplies the principal angled structure.

The mirror also changes the count of visible bodies. A reflected figure expands the fitting scene without adding another actual worker. The correspondence image instead develops its room through wallpaper and furniture, keeping attention on the relationship between two hands and one envelope.

A depicted fitting can suggest different social roles, just as correspondence can suggest access to written communication. Neither image by itself verifies the models’ real occupations or the exact circumstances of an individual transaction.

In the Omnibus

In the Omnibus places two adults and a child within public transport. The National Gallery’s final colour impression, accession 1963.10.250, is catalogued as the seventh state of seven. Window divisions and a bench organise the group, contrasting with the more private writing interior. ^[17]

The National Gallery’s process account uses a preparatory drawing, its reverse and several proofs to discuss that design’s development. It supplies more intermediate evidence than the first-and-final comparison considered here for The Letter. The two projects should retain their separate sequences. ^[15]

The final images also distribute attention differently. The omnibus passengers occupy a shared seat, with the child creating another centre of contact. The woman at the writing desk concentrates a brief action near her own face. Both make everyday life a subject for elaborate colour printing, while their figures, settings and proof histories remain distinct.