Mary Cassatt - Young Mother Sewing [1900]

During the 1890s Mary Cassatt (American, 1844 – 1926) narrowed the range of her subjects to mothers or nurses caring for children, and children alone. These themes reflected her affection for her nieces and nephews and her friends' children as well as her contemporaries' concern with motherhood and child rearing. Set in the conservatory of Cassatt's seventeenth-century manor house near Le Mesnil-Théribus, Oise, this painting depicts two of her favourite unrelated models in the roles of mother and child. Louisine Havemeyer, who purchased the painting in 1901, remarked on the truthfulness of its narrative: "Look at that little child that has just thrown herself against her mother's knee, regardless of the result and oblivious to the fact that she could disturb her mamma. And she is quite right . . . Mamma simply draws back a bit and continues to sew."

[Oil on canvas, 92.4 x 73.7 cm]

Mary Cassatt - The Caress [1902]

[Oil on canvas, 83.40 x 69.40 cm]

Marguerite Gerard - Artist Painting a Portrait of a Musician [c.1803]

Marguerite Gérard (Grasse, January 28, 1761 – Paris, May 18, 1837) was a French painter and etcher. She was the daughter of Marie Gilette and perfumer Claude Gérard. At 8 years-old she became the sister-in-law of Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and when she was 14 she became his pupil, and she often worked with him. She was also the aunt of the artist Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard.

[Oil on panel, 61 x 51.5 cm]

John Frederick Peto - Job Lot Cheap [c.1901-07]

Born in Philadelphia in 1854, John Frederick Peto was raised in that city and is first listed in the 1876 Philadelphia directory as a painter residing on Chestnut Street, a favourite neighbourhood of that city’s artists. Peto was a musician as well as a painter, playing the cornet in the Fire Department Band and at religious meetings. He studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, along with fellow student William Harnett, whose paintings were often confused with those of Peto due to their similarities in composition and subject - still life. By the end of the nineteenth century, Harnett’s signature was often forged on Peto’s paintings to fetch more money, as Peto’s work received little recognition at the time, while Harnett was well known, and his work commanded higher prices.

In June 1887 Peto married Christine Pearl Smith, and to earn money he began to commute to Island Heights, New Jersey, where he played the cornet at camp revival meetings. By 1889 he had settled there permanently, devoting his life to his family and to painting in his solitary studio, surrounded by the battered books, lamps, mugs, and pipes that appear in his art. Isolated in this riverside town, his career began to decline. Beset by poverty, family problems, and ill health, Peto died in Island Heights on November 23, 1907.

Romaine Brooks - Self-Portrait [1923]

In this painting, Romaine Brooks portrayed herself in the dark colours of a man's outfit, her eyes veiled under the shadow of her hat brim. Brooks lived most of her life in Paris, where she crafted an androgynous appearance that challenged conventional ideas of how women should look and behave. The shadowed face in this portrait suggests that her true self is hidden behind a carefully constructed facade. The tiny flash of red on Brooks's lapel represents the ribbon of the Legion of Honour she received for her artistic achievements, but it might also hint at the secret passions of her personal life.

[Oil on canvas, 117.5 x 68.3 cm]

Vincent van Gogh - Cottages [1890]

The painting was executed in Auvers not long before van Gogh's death. He repeated the motif of peasant huts on many occasions: "In my opinion, the most marvellous of all that I know in the sphere of architecture is huts with their roofs of moss-grown straw and a smoky hearth," wrote van Gogh in one of his letters. The thatched roofs seem to be just as much an organic part of nature as the hills, fields and sky. The hilly relief of the distance allowed the artist to accentuate the dynamics of space, which he reinforced through the use of colour contrasts. The tense, wavy brushstrokes and lines convey the dramatism of the artist's perception of life and the world.

[Oil on canvas, 59 x 72 cm]

Raphael - Portrait of a Nude Lady

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino[ (April 6 or March 28, 1483 – April 6, 1520), better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. Raphael was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop, and despite his death at thirty-seven, a large body of his work remains.