Lilacs in a Window

Around 1880 Mary Cassatt was still fairly new to the Impressionist circle. Degas had pulled her in a few years earlier, and she was mostly painting the women and children she'd become known for. Still life was never really her subject, which makes this one unusual. She set a dark vase of purple and white lilacs on a ledge in a greenhouse and worked at a problem her friends Monet and Renoir were chasing at the same time, how sunlight behaves coming through glass. Look at the window at the side, held open by a simple prop. The flowers are loosely, almost roughly brushed, while the light does the careful work. It is one of the very few pure flower pieces she ever painted.