Afternoon Tea Party

"Afternoon Tea Party" is a significant print created by the American Impressionist Mary Cassatt between 1890 and 1891. This complex work, classified as a Print, showcases Cassatt's advanced mastery of intaglio processes, combining drypoint, softground etching, and aquatint on wove paper. Executed during the influential artistic period spanning 1876 to 1900, the piece exemplifies the late-19th century engagement with intimate domestic genre scenes and innovative printmaking techniques inspired partly by Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts.

Cassatt consistently focused her sophisticated oeuvre on the private lives of women, often depicting the intimate rituals and social expectations of the middle and upper classes. This composition captures two figures engaged in the ritual of afternoon tea, a central social event in fin-de-siècle society. The interplay of precise drypoint lines provides definition to the figures and the environment, while the layered tones of aquatint create subtle gradations of shadow and light, defining space and volume. The softness achieved through the softground etching process gives the piece a delicate, almost painterly quality unusual for black-and-white prints, softening the stark outlines characteristic of pure etching.

Although based primarily in France, Cassatt maintained her identity as an American artist working closely within the Impressionist circle. Her dedicated foray into color and monochrome prints during the early 1890s resulted in some of her most acclaimed works, establishing her as a central figure in the graphic arts revival movement. The meticulousness demonstrated in creating these multifaceted prints highlights her technical ambition and dedication to the medium. This specific impression is held in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art, where it serves as a key example of her graphic output from the turn of the century. As a work from this prolific period, high-resolution images of Cassatt's various Afternoon Tea Party prints are frequently available through institutional public domain initiatives.