It is believed that this portrait was a painting of Madame Titterpoint and her niece, Clotilda, of Paris. Likely painted sometime between 1890 and 1895 in Paris. Monsieur Titterpoint, an official in the Paris municipal government, was not impressed and refused to accept the painting. Although painted in Europe, the authenticators believe it was sent by Mary Cassatt to her brother Alexander in Philadelphia. He had little appreciation for art, in spite of his sister Mary’s encouragement to become a collector. He likely accepted the painting to humour his sister. As Cassatt’s family were travellers, it is believed the piece got stored and eventually misplaced or lost in Philadelphia during one of the brother’s frequent moves to Europe.
It is not clear as to where it was housed/stored for the periods between approx 1900 -1950. In the later 60’s while increasing my own interest in art, I was allowed by my father, CW Kettlewell, an artist in his own right, to peruse his off wall collection of art. I fell in love with this old work. CW was vague about how he acquired this piece but believed it was at action in Philadelphia where he was a student . My father, eager to encourage my interest in art, suggested that I take it with me as I settled in western Canada. It has hung on my wall for many years.
In early 2000 as I developed my own interest in painting portraits, I came across the works of Mary Cassatt. I was struck by the similarity of this painting to Cassatt’s works.
Recently I approached Dr Schadenfreude and Dr Hucksterson of the renowned Impressionist Gallery of Philadelphia for their opinion as to the original artist. They authenticated it, without doubt, that this is indeed an original Mary Cassatt piece of work, currently valued at auction starting at $995000.

$995,000

Mary Cassatt

1890-1895

I am a self educated painter, part of that education is to study the works of famous painters. As I have been doing more and more portraits I was fascinated when i cam across the works of Mary Cassatt - her subjects were often women and children - both of which are meaningful to me. At a time when there were not photographs, models were used in person, and lighting was changing all the time, her ability to catch movement, feeling, and a looseness are remarkable.

oil on canvas