The Coiffure

Mary Cassatt

National Gallery of Art

Nude from the waist up, a woman gathers her hair in her raised hands as she sits before a mirror in this vertical print. The large mirror is to our right, and the woman’s body is mostly turned away from us. Her head is bowed but a loose tendril of dark hair hanging beside one cheek is reflected in the mirror. Her lower body is wrapped in a voluminous cloth as she leans forward on a curved, upholstered armchair. Her facial features, the contours of her body, and the folds of the towel are all delineated with thin black strokes. The mirror is set into a light gray wall in front of the woman but the wall to our left, past her shoulders, is blank. A few inscribed lines suggest a floral pattern on the floor beneath her bare feet. The artist signed the work in graphite under the lower right corner, “Mary Cassatt.”