Bring your favorites together in your free personal gallery.
Your galleryUnder the Lamp
Look first
- What catches your attention?
- Where does your eye go next?
- What would you ask about this work?
Show me
Follow the lamp’s dark upright between the two women, then compare the pale circle above with their illuminated hands and faces.
This small print combines soft-ground etching, aquatint, and scraping rather than painted color. Cassatt builds the interior from a few strong contrasts: the lamp divides the women while pale faces, hands, and fabric emerge from the surrounding black. The shared light connects their separate activities.
Soft ground etching and aquatint with scraping in black on cream laid paper · Image/plate: 19.2 × 21.8 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Impressionism
Look again
What do you notice now?
Try a quick sketch
Take a minute to sketch on any paper. No upload needed.
What did you draw first? What did you leave out?
Details and source
- Museum title
- Under the Lamp
- Artist
- Mary Cassatt American, 1844-1926
- Date
- c. 1882
- Medium
- Soft ground etching and aquatint with scraping in black on cream laid paper
- Dimensions
- Image/plate: 19.2 × 21.8 cm (7 9/16 × 8 5/8 in.); Sheet: 23.7 × 32.1 cm (9 3/8 × 12 11/16 in.)
- Credit line
- Albert H. Wolf Memorial Collection
- 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.