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 etching 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. 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 has a feather and is tied in a bow under the chin. She wears a hip-length cloak 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. What might be another cup-and-saucer set or the teapot is cut off by the right edge of the paper. 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. A few areas are colored in gray, including the second woman’s cloak, the tray, and the milk jug.