Woman with a Red Zinnia (Revery)

Mary Cassatt

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the knees up, a young woman with peachy skin and red hair sits facing us on a pine-green bench in this vertical painting. She sits with her body angled to our right, and her left elbow, on our right, hooks over the top slat of the bench. Her head tilts slightly to our right to rest on the curled fingers of that hand. In her other hand, she holds up a red flower on a short stem. Her hair is pulled up and back over a high forehead, and her cheeks are deeply flushed. Her pink lips are closed, and she looks down and to our left at the flower with gray eyes. She has an oval-shaped face and a hint of a double chin. Her white dress is painted with ice-blue shadows and folds. It has a deep V neck that reaches to an apron-like pinafore patterned with vertical bands of pale lilac that alternate with angled daubs of blue. Beyond her is a loosely painted landscape with grassy areas and clusters of tall trees painted in spring, emerald, and sea glass green. The edge of the grassy field nearly brushes the top edge of the canvas, and the trees are cropped by it. The artist signed the lower right, “Mary Cassatt.”