St. Louis Art Museum’s Cassatt Unsold at Auction

Mary Cassatt, “Françoise in Green, Sewing”
The ghost of Adelyn Breeskin intervened in the St. Louis Art Museum’s attempt to sell its only Cassatt, “Françoise in Green, Sewing.” The painting, which Cassatt expert Breeskin had exhibited at the Baltimore Museum, failed to find a buyer today at the same Christie’s auction where the Bellows‘ “Men of the Docks” and two other works from the Maier Museum of Randolph College would also have been put on the block, had opponents to those sales not gotten a court-ordered reprieve.
Even so, the auction house came away with its biggest total ever for a sale of American paintings, drawings and sculpture—$71.3 million. And the Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University succeeded in jettisoning its Childe Hassam for $3.74 million, including buyer’s premium.
Sotheby’s American art sale the day before totaled $65.2 million. At both houses, about a quarter of the lots failed to sell.