The Fitting
1890–91
Medium
Color aquatint and drypoint on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Plate: 37.7 × 25.6 cm (14 7/8 × 10 1/8 in.); Sheet: 43.7 × 29.8 cm (17 1/4 × 11 3/4 in.)
Classification
drypoint
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
13512
Art Historical Context
Mary Cassatt's *The Fitting* (1890–91) captures an intimate moment of a woman being fitted for a dress, rendered in her signature soft, luminous style as an American Impressionist deeply embedded in the French art scene. Living in Paris and exhibiting with the Impressionists, Cassatt often depicted women's everyday lives—motherhood, leisure, and domesticity—with a fresh, empathetic gaze that challenged traditional portraiture. This print, housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints and Drawings department, exemplifies her fascination with the private sphere during the late 19th century, a ...
About the Artist
Mary Cassatt
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was an American painter and printmaker who became the only American artist to exhibit with the French Impressionists. Born to a wealthy Pennsylvania family, she defied social conventions to pursue art professionally, settling permanently in Paris where Edgar Degas invited her to join the Impressionist group in 1877. Her paintings of mothers and children—rendered with Impre...