If You like Claude Monet, You'll love Mary Cassatt

Bourgeois life was also a subject of Mary Cassatt, an American artist living in Paris, an acquaintance of Monet, and one of the few woman impressionists. She had been invited by Edgar Degas to join the group in 1877.

This painting, Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, was made just one year later, and probably first exhibited at the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition in 1879.

This kind of scene would have been familiar to Cassatt - even though she didn't have children of her own - her upper middle class family ensured she always lived an independent life of relative ease and luxury.

Like Monet's beach scene, it appears that nothing much is happening: a young girl reclines on a large, floral chair.

On the chair beside her lies a small dog.

There's something uneasy about this scene. The perspective places us high up, looking down on the scene, as if we were an adult in the room. But our view is constrained by the crowded, oversized chairs, the plain grey floor, and the curtained windows.

The young child seems to be daydreaming. She lies back, entirely disengaged, her gaze passing by the viewer.

There are no  toys… no adults to pay attention… no other children to play with… and the dog would rather sleep.

In fact, this painting seems more like a psychological profile than a piece of decorative art. It's a multicolored insight into the stultifying comfort that women of Cassatt's class were expected to enjoy.