Afternoon Tea Party

Mary Cassatt

National Gallery of Art

Two women with sit next to a table holding a tray with teacups and saucers in this vertical drypoint and aquatint. Faint black lines outline the women, their features, clothing, and objects in the room. The women face each other and take up most of the composition. Their faces and hands are printed with yellow-tinged white, and both have oval faces, rounded noses, and their hair is pulled up and back. The woman to our right leans forward as she holds up a plate with her right hand, closer to us. The other hand rests on the arm of her chair. Her dress has a tight-fitting bodice, long sleeves, and a long skirt. The other woman’s cap is tied in a bow under the chin. She wears a hip-length cloak shaded iron gray over a long dress. She looks down at the plate and holds what might be a cookie or biscuit with one hand and a cup and a dish-like saucer with the other. Her lips are downturned, her head pulled slightly back to create a double chin, and she sits upright in her chair. In the lower right corner of the sheet, the round table is barely bigger than the tray it holds. On it are two more cups and saucers and a jug, presumably holding milk. A screen with openings across the top stands to the left behind the second woman, and a window is behind the first. Spiky fronds of a houseplant angle across the window, and a curtain is pulled to the left side. Squiggles on that second curtain suggest a floral pattern. The artist’s initials are written in graphite under the lower right corner of the printed image, “MC.”