Sara Holding a Cat

The child known as 'Sara' was one of Mary Cassatt's most frequently painted models, appearing in approximately 50 compositions from around 1900 through at least 1908. She was a young girl from Mesnil-Theribus in the Oise region of France, near Cassatt's country estate Beaufresne, and was identified as a granddaughter of Émile Loubet, President of France from 1899 to 1906. Cassatt — born in Pennsylvania but based in France for most of her adult life — was the only American artist to exhibit with the Impressionists in Paris and was championed by Degas, who became her close friend and mentor. This painting belongs to her late career, when her eyesight was already beginning to deteriorate from cataracts that would force her to stop painting entirely around 1914. The work is in a private collection.