| Detroit Institute of Arts Museum

In the Garden belongs to a group of pastels, drawings, and paintings done after 1900 and based upon children living in the village near the artist’s home in France. Cassatt’s practice with these child models was to use them again and again so they became accustomed to her and the demands of posing. The composition has several features common to impressionism: the high vantage point, the extension of the ground almost to the top of the canvas, the placement of the cropped figures in the immediate foreground, and the bold juxtaposition of the figures and the background.

Signed, lower left: Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt (Paris, France)

dealer, Durand-Ruel (New York, New York, USA). Cyrus J. Lawrence (New York, New York, USA)

1910, American Art Galleries, Cyrus J. Lawrence Sale (New York, New York, USA). James Stillman (Paris, France). Dr. Ernest G. Stillman (New York, New York, USA) 1922-present, gift to the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

Illustrated Catalogue of the Art Treasures Collected by the Well-Known Connoisseur the Late Cyrus J. Lawrence, Esq. New York, 1910, p. 3. Eighth Annual Exhibition of American Artists. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1922, no. 25. “Art Institute Gets Mysterious Present: Painting by Mary Cassatt is Anonymous Gift.” Detroit News. (February 19, 1922). “The Mystery Gift of the Detroit Institute of Arts.” Detroit News (February 26, 1922). Burroughs, C. “Painting by Mary Cassatt Presented.” Bulletin of the DIA 3 (April 1922): pp. 66-67. Catalogue of Paintings in the Permanent Collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts. 1930. Sargent, Whistler and Cassatt. Exh. cat., Grand Rapids Art Gallery. Grand Rapids, 1955. Michigan Museums Exhibition. Exh. cat., Flint Institute of Arts. Flint, 1961. Impressionism in America. Exh. cat., New Mexico University of Art Gallery. Albuquerque, 1965, no. 4. Breeskin, A. D. Mary Cassat: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oils, Pastels, Watercolors and Drawings. Washington D.C., 1970, p. 175, no. 452. Mary Cassatt. Exh. cat., Grand Rapids Art Museum. Grand Rapids, 1974, no. 3. "Family Art Game." DIA Advertsing Supplement. Detroit Free Press. (May 20, 1979): p. 21 (ill.). Getlien, Frank. Mary Cassatt: Paintings and Prints. 1980, p. 136. Six Femmes Peintres. Exh. cat., Musee Prefectoral d’Aichi. Nagoya, Japan, 1983, no. 55. Brown, Milton. The Story of the Armory Show. New York, 1988, no. 493. Masterworks from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Bunkamura Museum of Art.Tokyo, 1989, no. 67. American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts, Volume II. New York, 1997, pp. 44-46(ill.). Crane, Michael. Detroit's Annual Exhibition of American Art: The Foundation of a Collection. www.dia.org/research/online_publications/annual_american_art, 2005.

Mary Cassatt, In the Garden, 1903 or 1904, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of Dr. Ernest G. Stillman, 22.6.