Alfred Pope: An Evolution of Ingenuity
Mary Cassatt (American, 1844–1926)
1. The Barefooted Child
2. Mother About to Wash Her Sleepy Child
3. Antoinette Holding Her Child by Both Hands
4. The Family
5. Sara Handing a Toy to the Baby
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The Barefooted Child, 1897
Pastel on paper, 28 ½ × 20 ¾ in. (72.4 × 53 cm). Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine.
Like all of his other Cassatt paintings, Alfred acquired The Barefooted Child from the leading French gallery of Impressionist art, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris. This pastel remained in the family’s collection until 1943 when Theodate sold it to Mr. and Mrs. Murray S. Danforth, avid collectors of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. They owned it for a decade until Mr. Danforth passed away in 1953, after which Mrs. Danforth presented it as a gift to her husband’s alma mater, Bowdoin College. It has been in the collection of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art ever since. Mrs. Danforth was the second woman president of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence, leading the board from 1931 to 1965. She significantly advanced the RISD Museum of Art by giving over 2,000 objects ranging from ancient sculpture to contemporary art to the collection.
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Mother About to Wash Her Sleepy Child, 1880
Oil on canvas, 39 ½ × 25 ¾ in. (100 × 65 cm). Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California.
Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris acquired Mother About to Wash Her Sleepy Child from Cassatt on August 31, 1895. Shortly after, Alfred acquired the painting from the gallery. This masterpiece remained in the Pope collection until 1944, when Theodate sold this work, along with two others, jointly to Knoedler and Co. and John Levy Galleries. Knoedler was one of the most important fine art galleries in the country until its closure in 2011. Mrs. Fred Hathaway Bixby acquired the work through Knoedler and Co. in 1946 and later bequeathed it to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art where it remains today.
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Antoinette Holding Her Child by Both Hands, c. 1899
Oil on canvas, 28 ¾ × 23 ¾ in. (73 × 60 cm). Private collection, United States.
Cassatt sold this work to Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris on November 23, 1899. Less than three months later, Alfred acquired this work from the French dealers on February 14, 1900. This important portrait of Antoinette and her child Jules is one of the three works that Theodate sold jointly to John Levy Galleries and Knoedler and Co. in 1944, the other two being Monet’s Pointes de rochers à Belle-Île, 1886, and Cassatt’s Mother About to Wash Her Sleepy Child, 1880. We believe Theodate made the decision to sell these works at that time to bolster the ailing finances of Avon Old Farms School, the school she founded and designed in honor of her father. Theodate had been self-funding the school since its inception in 1918. In 1948 Knoedler sold this Cassatt to Mr. and Mrs. J. Lee Johnson of Fort Worth, Texas. It remained in the family for two generations until 2006, when Karen Carter Lindley sold the painting at a Christie’s auction in New York. The painting was then acquired by an American collector, who is generously lending it for this exhibition.
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The Family, c. 1886
Oil on canvas, 32 × 26 in. (81.2 × 66 cm). Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia.
The Family was the first Mary Cassatt work that Alfred acquired. He purchased this piece on February 28, 1894, from Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, which had acquired the work directly from the artist. Alfred owned this piece for a little less than three months, as he sold it back to the New York branch of the Gallery on May 24, 1894. The painting then passed to several prominent collections worldwide, including the Havemeyer Collection in New York. Before being acquired by Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. c. 1954, the work adorned the homes of collectors in Paris, London, Detroit and Zurich. In 1971, Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. gifted the painting to the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, where it is still on view today.
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Sara Handing a Toy to the Baby, ca. 1901
Oil on canvas, 33 x 27 in. (83.8 x 68.6 cm). Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, Connecticut.
Of the five Cassatt paintings that Alfred acquired during his lifetime, Sara Handing a Toy to the Baby is the only one that remains in Hill-Stead’s collection. This family portrait was also the last painting by the artist that Alfred purchased on October 7, 1902. It is usually on view in the Museum’s Green guest bedroom, and it is unknown why Theodate opted to retain it, rather than sell it with the group of other Cassatts her father had acquired.