Nov 02, 2023 - Sale 2651

Sale 2651 - Lot 148

Price Realized: $ 22,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000
MARY CASSATT
The Banjo Lesson.

Color drypoint and soft-ground on thin laid paper, circa 1893. 295x237 mm; 11 5/8x9 3/8 inches, wide margins. Fourth state (of 4), printed in colors. Signed in pencil, lower right. A very good impression of this scarce drypoint.

We have found only seven other impressions in all states combined at auction in the past 30 years.

The same-titled pastel drawing of this subject is in the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond. To adorn the north tympanum to the entrance to the Gallery of Honor in the Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Cassatt (1844-1926) painted a three panel mural, now lost, entitled Modern Woman. The panels were divided into three subjects, Young Girls Pursuing Fame, Young Women Plucking the Fruits of Knowledge of Science, and Arts, Music, and Dancing, the latter of which includes a woman playing the banjo. Breeskin 156.