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signed indistinctly Mary Cassatt, l.l. oil on canvas In 1901 Mary Cassatt began working on a series of pastels depicting elaborately dressed young girls against very plain interior backgrounds. Several pastels from the series were purchased by Ambroise Vollard and exhibited in Paris where they proved extremely popular with collectors. After the success of the pastels, Cassatt began exploring this subject in oil, using the same vibrantly colored costumes, simple, dark backgrounds, and with the same vigorous, confident handling. The sitter in the present work is Sara, a young model who appears repeatedly in Cassatt's work after the turn of the century. One of Cassatt's earliest portraits of Sara is Sara in a Green Bonnet, 1901 (The National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C.); according to the National Collection of Fine Art records, the little girl was the granddaughter of Emile Loubet, one of the former presidents of the French Republic. Sara's sweetly expressive face and spirited, but well-mannered disposition made her one of Cassatt's favorite models. This painting will be included in the Cassatt Committee's revised edition of Adelyn Dohme Breeskin's catalogue raisonné of the works of Mary Cassatt.