Mary Cassatt’s flair for digging into an ordinary moment and distilling its emotions stands out in this portrayal of three individuals lulled by a carriage ride into silent reverie. Once titled simply Driving, the painting depicts an outing in the Bois de Boulogne, a large wooded park on the western edge of Paris. The driver of the carriage is Lydia Cassatt, sister of the artist, and the girl seated primly beside her is Odile Fèvre, niece of the painter Edgar Degas. The bored-looking groom is unidentified.
Usually associated with domestic interiors and the private lives of women and children, here Cassatt explored an outdoor setting and a degree of autonomy enjoyed by upper-class women. Driving in the park was something the Cassatt sisters enjoyed, particularly after 1879, when the family acquired a small carriage and Bichette, the horse partly depicted here.
Mary Cassatt’s (American, 1844–1926) paintings, pastels, and prints demonstrate her personal philosophy that “women should be someone and not something.” In domestic scenes, Cassatt explores the lives and occupations of women, showing them as active and engaged figures. She depicts women reading, caregivers bathing children, and ladies enjoying tea, sealing a letter, or driving a carriage.
Born in Pennsylvania, Cassatt was the only American to join the French Impressionists. Although she spent most of her life abroad, her family’s connections to Philadelphia have made the museum, which holds eighty-three artworks and numerous letters by Cassatt, an important center for her work.
Source: Philadelphia Museum of Art
