Mother and Child (The Oval Mirror)

Mary Cassatt

Oil on canvas

Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this intimate oil on canvas, Mary Cassatt portrays a mother and young boy positioned before an oval mirror, the mother gazing adoringly at her child while the boy stands in a gentle contrapposto stance. The oval mirror frames the child's head in a manner evocative of a halo, inviting comparison with Italian Renaissance depictions of the Virgin and Child—an association so pronounced that the Havemeyer family, who owned the work, referred to it as 'The Florentine Madonna.' Cassatt, an American Impressionist who spent much of her career in France and was the only American artist to exhibit formally with the Impressionists, rendered the scene with the warm, loose brushwork characteristic of the movement, suffusing it with tenderness and domestic intimacy. The painting stands as one of the most celebrated works from Cassatt's sustained engagement with the mother-and-child theme, which defined the mature phase of her career.