A talented painter, pastelist, and printmaker, Mary Cassatt occupies a unique place in the history of American art. She was the only American to exhibit with the Impressionists in France. Cassatt is most often associated with her depictions of the intimate relationship between mother and child. She portrayed this particular pair, about whom we know very little, in six pastels, adopting her French colleagues’ practice of working in series. The work’s sketchy quality, with its staccato strokes of pastel crayon and fresh immediacy, makes it the most Impressionistic of the group.