Woman with a Fan

Mary Cassatt

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the hips up, a pale-skinned woman holds an open, gold-colored fan in her lap in this vertical, loosely painted portrait. Brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially in the clothing and background, so some details are indistinct. The woman’s body is angled slightly to our left, and she looks off in that direction with her chin pulled in. Her dark eyes seem unfocused under faint brows. She has an oval face with a straight, flaring nose, and her full, pale pink lips are closed. Her brown hair is pulled back, and she wears a white scarf tied under her chin. Her high-necked dress is painted with strokes and dabs of celery green and butter yellow and is shaded with mauve pink. The cuffs are scarlet red where they fold back over her forearms. The woman sits on an upholstered sofa with a rounded back, painted in similar shades of pale green and yellow with touches of red. The back of the sofa and the woman’s head are reflected in a framed mirror just behind the couch. The area in the top right corner of the composition is especially loosely painted but strokes in white, red, green, and blue. The artist signed the painting near the woman’s shoulder to our left: “Mary Cassatt.”