Mary Cassatt created a series of color prints inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e.
Cassatt produced her celebrated set of ten color prints around 1890–1891 after seeing a major exhibition of Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints at Paris’s École des Beaux-Arts in 1890. The series included works such as The Coiffure, The Bath, The Letter, and Maternal Caress.
Rather than copying Japanese imagery literally, Cassatt adapted ukiyo-e principles to scenes of modern women and domestic life. Her prints use flattened space, bold patterns, asymmetrical cropping, and areas of relatively unmodulated color. She combined drypoint, soft-ground etching, and aquatint, printing colors from multiple plates.
The series is associated with Japonisme, the strong European fascination with Japanese art in the late nineteenth century. Cassatt is sometimes remembered primarily as a painter of mothers and children, but these technically demanding prints were among her most innovative achievements and show how directly Japanese design shaped her mature style.