Lydia Leaning on Her Arms, Seated in Loge
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| Mary Cassatt, Lydia Leaning on Her Arms, Seated in Loge, 1879 |
But is it? Speculation exists as the to identity of the woman in this pastel by Mary Cassatt, created two years after the young artist's family settled in Paris. Lydia, the supposed subject of this painting, moved with Mary to Paris a few years before their parents to act as Mary's chaperone. She changes, however, from painting to painting. She's pictured first as a brunette with fringe bangs and a frown, then as a strawberry blond with an expectant face, and lastly as an aged spinster with tight, light brown curls.
So what does Marry Cassatt's sister actually look like? The answer may lie in Cassatt's final portrait of her sister before Lydia's death. Painted in 1881, Lydia at a Tapestry Loom illustrates a sickly, worn-out Lydia, bent over her work with an almost desperate concentration. Knowing she was to die, perhaps Lydia wished to produce as much as she possibly could before leaving her sister. She didn't possess the talent for painting like her sister did, and had no way of enshrining herself in her work.
Lydia suffered from an illness that deteriorated her kidneys. A slow and painful death, Mary most likely saw her sister suffer for the beginning part of her painting career. Symptoms might have shown up as early as 1879, when Lydia Leaning on Her Arms, Seated in Loge, was created. Perhaps Mary's use of a model was purposeful. The subject looks happy, expectant, and completely at ease. Surrounded by the close confines of the theater box, Lydia thrusts herself into the light in order to be seen instead of slinking back into the shadows. Mary could be showing the world the Lydia she knew, before the onset of her illness. By using a model that captured not Lydia's form, but her spirit, Mary pays tribute to her sister in the only way she knows how.
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