The Cup of Tea
Mary Cassatt’s sister Lydia was a big part of her life. Neither of them deciding to marry, they lived together in France until Lydia’s death in 1882. While she was alive, Mary used Lydia as a model in many of her paintings, The Cup of Tea being one of them. This painting is more of a genre painting than a portrait, as it represents a social custom that Cassatt revisited many times in her paintings: the taking of a cup of tea. Painted in an impressionistic manner, many art critics viewed the painting as unfinished, due to the fact that Cassatt left small peripheral portions of the canvas unpainted.
