Ellen Mary in a White Coat

The child almost swallowed by this white coat and enormous fur-trimmed hat is Ellen Mary Cassatt, the painter's niece, about two years old. She was the second child of Gardner, Mary Cassatt's youngest brother, and the family was most likely visiting the artist at her country house north-west of Paris in 1896 when the picture was made. It was the first of many portraits Cassatt painted of her as she grew up. Cassatt had studied Velázquez closely, and his pictures of the children of the Spanish royal family, small figures held stiff inside court dress, lie behind this one. Only the tiny face, the hands and the sketched-in feet escape the clothes. In 1911 Cassatt gave the painting to Ellen Mary herself. Aunt and niece grew close, and when Cassatt died in 1926 she left her the house. The portrait stayed with Ellen Mary and then with her son until 2012, when her family gave it to the Museum of Fine Arts.