In the Omnibus

In this color drypoint and aquatint from 1890, Mary Cassatt captures a quiet moment of everyday life in Paris. We see a middle-class woman, her nursemaid, and a child riding in an omnibus, a public carriage that allowed different social strata to mingle. The composition, with its flat planes of color and intimate domestic subject, shows the influence of Japanese woodblock prints, a style admired by Cassatt and her contemporaries. Notice how the woman in the foreground looks out beyond the frame, lost in thought, while the nursemaid's attention remains fixed on the young child. This print belongs to a series that was praised by Camille Pissarro for its beauty and its successful translation of Ukiyo-e aesthetics.