MARY CASSATT

Many preparatory works are a means to an end. The artists who made them may have never considered that they would be shown in an art museum. Although L’Enfant Blonde is the precursor to a more finished portrait, Mary Cassatt intended this quickly painted oil sketch to stand on its own as a work of art. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, sketches like this were increasingly prized for aesthetic reasons as well as for the insight they offered into artists’ thought processes.