Mother Feeding Child

Mary Cassatt

Pastel on wove paper, mounted on canvas

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Mother Feeding Child is a pastel on wove paper, mounted on canvas, executed by Mary Cassatt in 1898 and now held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The work depicts a woman feeding a young child in an intimate domestic setting, evoking the image of a secular "modern Madonna" while simultaneously functioning as an Impressionist genre scene rich in texture, pattern, and still-life detail. Cassatt, an American artist who settled in Paris and became the only American to exhibit formally with the French Impressionists, made the mother-and-child theme a cornerstone of her mature practice after roughly 1893. The delicate handling of the pastel medium reflects her engagement with the French Rococo pastel tradition, particularly the work of Maurice Quentin de La Tour, characterized by precision, clarity, and a light painterly touch.