Harvard museums to sell Mary Cassatt artwork
Published November 25th, 2005
Harvard University Art Museums officials have decided to sell a Mary Cassatt painting that Christie’s auction house estimates could bring as much as $5 million when it goes on the block Dec. 1. The brightly colored oil, titled ”Mother and Two Children,” explores a familiar motif for the American-born artist, who spent most of her life in France.
Painted in 1906, the work was given to Harvard in 1922 by Ernest G. Stillman, a member of the class of 1907. The painting has rarely been on display. Money from the sale will go into the museums’ acquisitions fund and is most likely to be used to buy a work by the same artist, according to Theodore Stebbins, curator of American Art at the Fogg Art Museum.
