In the early 1890s, Harris Whittemore and his father, John Howard Whittemore, each met Mary Cassatt and formed a relationship with the artist that would last the remainder of their lives, collecting around seventy-five of her works. As father and son, they shared a passion for acquiring art, that of the French Impressionists, buying with fervor and intention. When Harris Whittemore and Cassatt first met, he and his wife had just purchased a painting of hers during a visit to Durand-Ruel Gallery in Paris. His wife, Justine, wrote to their family back in Connecticut, “hearing that Miss Mary Cassatt was in town and admiring some pictures he saw of hers he went to call and found her charming. She was so pleased that Harris had bought one of hers and that it was to go to her country” (Ann Y. Smith, “The Whittemores of Connecticut: Pioneer Collectors of French Impressionism,” AFAnews.com, 16 March 2013).
By the time that she met the Whittemores, Cassatt was an ex-patriate of the United States and had yet to return. In 1898, during her first trip back to America after a quarter of a century abroad, she visited the Whittemore family for a commission of pastel portraits: Portrait of a Grand Lady of Mrs. John Howard Whittemore; Boy with Golden Curls of Harris Whitemore’s patronymic son; and the present work, Mrs. Harris Whittemore and Baby Helen of Justine and her youngest child.
right: Mary Cassatt, Boy with Golden Curls (Portrait of Harris Whitemore, Jr. B.A. 1918), 1898, pastel on paper mounted on canvas, 21 ½ x 19 ½ in. Yale University Art Gallery.
This selection of portraits, Mrs. Harris Whittemore and Baby Helen in particular, is exemplary of the artist’s work with pastel. Cassatt became a master of the medium, joining the likes of her mentor and another favored artist of the Whittemores, Edgar Degas. The tenderness of her well-loved subject of mother and child in Mrs. Harris Whittemore and Baby Helen is amplified through the soft quality of the pastel. Cassatt’s affinity to detail is present in the highlights of the baby’s golden locks as well as the accurate rosiness in her cheeks and subtle slope of her nose. This warm, loving moment between Justine and Helen contrasted against the vibrant blues of their clothes and background captures the essence of Mary Cassatt’s artistic vision.