Children Playing on the Beach

1884 · Painting

May one see it?

Not receiving at present

Washington, D.C., United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

1882
Death of her sister Lydia
Mary gives up painting to nurse her mother and her sister Lydia, who fell ill after the move to Paris in 1877. In 1882 Lydia dies, while her mother recovers.
1883
Adviser to the Havemeyer family
Mary’s friend Louisine Elder marries Harry Havemeyer, and with Mary as adviser the couple begin collecting the Impressionists on a grand scale. Much of their vast collection is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
mid-1880s
Returns to painting
Mary’s mother recovers, and after nursing the sick and losing her sister she takes up painting again. Her style changes: she moves away from Impressionism towards a simpler, more direct manner.
1886
Parting ways with Impressionism
From 1886 Mary no longer identifies with any movement and tries a variety of styles; a series of rigorous, unsentimental pictures of mother and child becomes the main theme of her best-known work.
1886
Two paintings at the first Impressionist exhibition in the US
Mary lends two paintings to the first Impressionist exhibition in the United States, organised by the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel.