Mary Cassatt - The Banjo Lesson 1893-1894
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The Banjo Lesson 1893-1894
71x57cm pastel over oiled pastel on tan wove paper
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmon, United States
The image is only being used for informational and educational purposes
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From Virginia Museum of Fine Arts:
The theme of shared female experience shapes the form and content of Cassatt’s The Banjo Lesson. Likening “plucking the fruits of knowledge” to plucking the strings of a musical instrument, Cassatt explored the subject in a series of experimental pastels and color prints soon after completing her allegorical Modern Woman mural for the 1893 Chicago world’s fair, in which the motif also appears. The popularity of the banjo, a distinctively American instrument (with African roots), spread across racial, gender, and class lines in the 1880s. In addition to pastel, Cassatt rendered this image in drypoint and aquatint; VMFA also owns one of these rare etchings.