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Your galleryOn a Balcony
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Find the newspaper in the woman’s hands, then compare its broad pale area with the small colored marks in her dress and the flowers.
The woman is reading news, connecting this enclosed domestic setting with the world outside. Cassatt included the painting in the Impressionist exhibition of 1880, her second appearance with the group. The balcony rail, morning clothes, and crowded flowers give a public act of reading an intimate setting.
Oil on canvas · 85.2 × 65.5 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Impressionism · Modernism
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Details and source
- Museum title
- On a Balcony
- Artist
- Mary Cassatt
- Date
- 1878–79
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 85.2 × 65.5 cm (33 9/16 × 25 13/16 in.)
- Credit line
- Gift of Mrs. Albert J. Beveridge in memory of her aunt, Delia Spencer Field
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.