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ELSIE CASSATT HOLDING A BIG DOG pastel on paper mounted at the edges to a board 25 1/4 x 20 1/2 in. (64.2 x 52.1 cm.) Drawn circa 1880 PROVENANCE Alexander J. Cassatt, Philadelphia Mr. and Mrs. William Plunkett Stewart, Unionville, Pennsylvania (by descent) EXHIBITED Haverford College, 1939, no. 22 Philadelphia, The Museum of Art, Mary Cassatt Exhibition, Apr.-May, 1960 LITERATURE A. Breeskin, Mary Cassatt, A Catalogue Raisonne of the Oils, Pastels, Watercolors and Drawings, Washington, D.C., 1970, p. 58, no. 81 (illustrated) The subject of this pastel is Mary Cassatt's niece Elsie, the daughter of her brother Alexander, an executive of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Elsie became Mrs. W. Plunkett Stewart of Unionville, Pennsylvania and this pastel was inherited by her daughter, Elsie Cassatt Stewart Simmons. Born in 1875, Elsie was five years old when she sat for this portrait in 1880. She also appears, at the same age, in a large multiple portrait by Cassatt, listening to her grandmother read fairy tales. Titled La lecture (private collection) that work was included with three other oil paintings and seven pastels as Cassatt's contribution to the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition at 35 Boulevard des Capucines in 1881. Although Cassatt only joined the Impressionist group in 1879 (at Degas's urging), she was extremely well received at this exhibition. Of the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition Mary Cassatt's father wrote to Alexander, her brother (the first owner of this work): Mame's success is certainly more marked this year than at any time previous. It is noticeable that of the three American papers published in Paris the "Parisian" is the only one that notices the Exposition - - Mame keeps the colony [of Americans in Paris] at such a distance that she cannot expect any support from them - - The thing that pleases her most in this success is not the newspaper publicity, for that she dispises [sic] as a rule - - but the fact that artists of talent and reputation and other persons prominent in art matters ask to be introduced to her and compliment her on her work. (N.M. Mathews, Cassatt and Her Circle: Selected Letters, New York, 1984, pp. 160-161). A double portrait of Elsie and her brother Robert showing her wearing the same bonnet and cape is still in the collection of the descendants of Mary Cassatt (Breeskin no. 76). The artist used this as a support for Elsie Cassatt holding a big dog and they were originally framed together. The painting was discovered behind this pastel in the 1930s and removed. The Cassatt Committee will include this pastel in their forthcoming revision of Adelyn Dohme Breeskin's catalogue raisonne of the works of Mary Cassatt.