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Home : Quarterly Archives : Volume 27 |
Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society |
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Source: July 1989 Volume 27 Number 3, Pages 113–117 The Cassatt Brothers' Sister The popular misconception notwithstanding, Mary Cassatt never lived on the Main Line or in Tredyffrin or Easttown township. Her brother Alexander did. Alexander J. Cassatt, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, was the owner of the famed Chesterbrook Farm, a 600-acre estate in Tredyffrin that at the turn of the century was one of the foremost stock farms in America. From its stables came a Preakness winner, The Bard; its hackney horses were perennial show winners; and its herd of Guernsey cattle and flock of Shropshire sheep were equally noteworthy. [It is now the Chesterbrook Villages and shopping center.] And her other brother, Gardner did. J. Gardner Cassatt was with Cassatt & Co., Bankers, investment bankers in Philadelphia. In 1907 he built a 53-room mansion on his 124-acre Kelso Farm at Daylesford in Easttown Township. The architects for the French Renaissance style residence were Cope and Stewardson, of Philadelphia. [It is now the Upper Main Line YMCA.] But not Mary Cassatt. The misconception, however, is perhaps understandable: as Frederick A. Sweet observed, in the preface of his highy regarded Miss Mary Cassatt, "Although Mary Cassatt's status as an artist is generally recognized ... probably no other artist has ever had so many misstatements of fact written about her as Mary Cassatt." There is apparently confusion about even the place and date of her birth. Was she born in Pittsburgh, as frequently reported, or in Allegheny City, or, even, in Philadelphia? Was it on May 23d, as shown on her baptismal records, or May 22d? Was it in 1845, as sometimes reported, or in 1844? According to Sweet, it is recorded in the family records that Mary Stevenson Cassatt was born "in the house built by her father on Rebecca Street in Allegheny City on May 22, 1844 at 55 minutes past 11 o'clock at night". She was the fifth child of Robert and Katherine Johnston Cassatt. (Her father was later the mayor of Allegheny City before it became a part of the city of Pittsburgh.) In 1848 the family moved to Pittsburgh, and later that year to Hardwick, in Lancaster County. In Lancaster County Mary Cassatt learned to ride; she became an excellent horsewoman, and enjoyed riding until she broke the tibia of her right leg and dislocated her shoulder in a fall in the summer of 1888 and was never able to ride again. She continued to drive very well, however, and, after she acquired a Renault Landaulet in 1918, at the age of 72 became an avid motorist. Her first trip to France was in the fall of 1851. That fall the entire Cassatt family, then living in Philadelphia, took an extended trip abroad. They lived in Europe for four years, where Mary learned to speak French fluently -- but always with a Pennsylvania accent -- before returning to Philadelphia. At the age of 17 she enrolled at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, but after four years there she decided she should continue her study in Europe. Reluctantly her father gave his permission, and she returned to Paris and lived with friends of the family. Her studies there, however, were interrupted by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, but at the end of the war the next year, she returned to Europe, studying and copying the works of the "old masters" in Italy, France, Spain, and Belgium. (Sweet noted that she "believed too much art-school instruction was dangerous lest a teacher impose his own style on her".) When a portrait she did of a Madame Cortier was included in the Paris Salon exhibit in 1874, she was "discovered" by Edgar Degas, who was to have a great influence on her. Three years later he asked her to join in the new movement known as the "Impressionists", though they preferred to be called the "Independents". She accepted, and in the group's fourth exhibition in 1878, her painting "Le Loge" was included. It was shown along with works by Degas, Pizzarro, Monet, and eleven other artists. In the meantime, in 1877, her parents and also her sister Lydia came to France, where they made their home for the rest of their lives. Notwithstanding her wealthy brothers or the nearness of her parents, however, it was well understood that Mary Cassatt was to "make it" on her own and pay her own way as a painter. "I have said," her father wrote in a letter in late 1878, "that the studio must at least support itself. ... Her circle," he added, "among artists and literary people is certainly extending and she enjoys a reputation among them not only as an artist but also for literary taste and knowledge."
Mary Cassatt [painting by Edgar Degas] In addition to her painting, Mary Cassatt also became an art adviser for several American collectors. She is probably best known in this role for the advice and assistance she gave to Louisine Elder (later Mrs. Henry 0. Havemeyer) in the accumulation of the famed Havemeyer collection. Appropriately, the first acquisition for the collection was a pastel by Degas, bought for 500 francs, or about $100. The Havemeyer's home, in the 1890s, was once described as a "veritable museum" that housed "the most important private collection in America". Over the years Mary Cassatt also helped her brother Alexander amass a fine collection of 19th century French paintings, including several by Manet, Monet, Degas, Pissarro, and Renoir. Alexander Cassatt thus became the second collector of French Impressionist painting in America. She also recommended several paintings that her brother Gardner purchased, but his interest reportedly was more in yachts than art. That other American collectors and American museums were not more interested in the paintings of the "Independents" was a perennial concern to her. She had her first "one man" show in early 1891 at the galleries of Durand Ruel. Although it was a small show, it gave her a feeling of self importance, especially after Degas complimented her on her improvement. That winter she purchased Chateau de Beaufreme, a 17th century manor house at Mesnil-Theribus in the Department of Oise, as a country home. After considerable repair and renovation, she and her mother moved into it two years later. (Her father had passed away in December 1891.) The three-story pinkish-red brick building, with its mansard roof and hexagonal towers at either end, had once been a hunting lodge, built in the reign of Louis XIII. The estate included about 45 acres -- lawns, gardens, a long narrow pool bordered by Lombardy poplars, fruit trees, a vegetable garden -- with stables and a carriage house. The staff included a gouvernante, a cook, a housemaid, a chambermaid, three gardeners, and a coachman. As a hobby she raised "toy" dogs, Belgian griffes -- although the first one she bought turned out to be a King Charles spaniel! At this time she was at work on a large mural for the Women's Building at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, one of two women artists commissioned by Mrs. Potter Palmer for the pavilion project. In a letter to Mrs. Palmer she outlined her intent. "I have tried," she wrote, "to express the modern woman in the fashions of our day ... [and] to make the general effect as bright, as gay, as amusing as possible." (At the same time, however, she expressed concern that the finished work would be placed 48 feet high and that "you will have to stretch your neck to get sight of it at all.) The finished mural, Sweet commented, was "one of her least notable efforts"; nevertheless he added that as a woman and something of a feminist "she was very proud to have been asked to participate" in the project. (Two decades later she again, indirectly, aided the feminist cause. In April 1915 Mrs. Havemeyer, using paintings from her personal collection, organized an exhibition of Mary Cassatt's work at Knoedler Galleries in New York City for the benefit of the women's suffrage movement. The exhibit also contained works by Degas, whose death two years later was an irreparable loss to Mary Cassatt.) Although both Alexander and Gardner Cassatt and their families made frequent trips to Europe and visits to their sister, a side from her "enforced visit" to the United States during the Franco-Prussian War, Mary Cassatt visited this country only twice after she went abroad for further study in 1871. Her first visit was in late 1898. She stayed at the townhouse of her brother Gardner in Philadelphia, but spent much of her time in Boston and Naugutuck, Connecticut on portrait commissions. Her second visit was a decade later, to spend the Christmas holiday with Gardner and his family. On the trip across the Atlantic she got so violently seasick that, on her arrival in New York City, she had to be carried off the ship, and needed several weeks to recover. At that time she vowed that it would be her last visit to the United States, and it was. It was during this stay that she also visited her brother's new country house in Daylesford. While she was there, incidentally, she was rebuked by the farmer's wife for going into the springhouse with her shoes on! There appears to be no evidence that she visited Chesterbrook on either trip. (Alexander Cassatt had died two years before her second visit.) In 1904 a signal honor came to her as she was named a chevalier of the Legion of Honor. It was particularly significant that a woman achieved this recognition. By 1911, when her brother Gardner died, Mary Cassatt was in her mid-60s. Her years of creativity and painting were just about ended. Cataract operations in both eyes in 1912 were not particularly successful, and by the spring of 1918, while she could still write, she could no longer see well enough to read. Subsequent operations on her eyes were, again, to little avail. She also had diabetes. Nevertheless, her visitors still found her "fascinating to listen to but at the same time difficult, unreasonable, and violently opinionated". Her last years were sad. Finally, on June 24, 1926 she passed away, in her 83d year. She was buried in the family vault at Mesnil-Theribus, Her funeral was "a most impressive ceremony (of the protestant religion) with military honors in view of her Legion of Honor and accompanied by the Mesnil-Theribus band". While she was an expatriate for all her adult life, Mary Cassatt always considered herself an American, and maintained Philadelphia as her legal residence. But her only real association with this area, in fact, were two brothers with country estates in Tredyffrin and Easttown townships. |
