Mary Cassatt ( 1844 – 1926)
Baby Reaching for an Apple

1893 o/c
Virginia Museum of Fine Art
Richmond, Va.

Baby Reaching for an Apple

from an 1893 Mary Cassatt painting

Mother’s dress, while fashioned
with cinched waist and turn-of-the-century pleats,
allows her movement and is flesh
pink splashed with green and violet
like the swirl of lily pads
on dusty water
when the sun is not peevish
nor the water blue.

It’s perched at her waist,
stiff legs supported
by her cradled arm, while
the tree’s canopy of branches
crowns the baby’s head
making the sky entirely green.

She grasps a branch, pressing
it down as the baby pushes
on her stomach to reach
the apple
waiting above them both.
Their brown eyes ascend


Marcia Aldrich
The Greensboro Review
Winter 1988-89, Number 45

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For more information on this paintiing:

http://www.vmfa.state.va.us/