When A Woman and a Girl Driving was first exhibited at the 1881 Impressionist show in Paris, critics were startled by its bold subject: a woman confidently holding the reins of a carriage, with a young girl at her side, both unchaperoned. At a time when women’s independence was still a matter of heated debate, Mary Cassatt’s painting was seen as quietly radical. The model for the driver was Cassatt’s own sister, Lydia, who often appeared in her work, while the girl is thought to be Odile Fèvre, the niece of fellow Impressionist Edgar Degas.

The painting’s public debut was not only a statement about modern life, but a personal assertion of autonomy and mobility. Cassatt captures a crisp, sunlit afternoon in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris’s fashionable park. The woman sits upright, gloved hands firm on the reins, her gaze fixed ahead, while the girl, dressed in white, leans forward, alert and eager. The high-wheeled carriage, known as a “phaeton,” was a symbol of freedom and social status, and Cassatt’s composition places the pair front and center, with the horses cropped at the edge—a device that thrusts the viewer into the scene.

The loose, energetic brushwork and bright palette recall Degas’s own scenes of modern Paris, yet Cassatt’s focus is not on spectacle but on the quiet confidence of her subjects. Unlike Manet’s The Railway, where the female figure is passive, here the woman is in control, both literally and figuratively. The painting’s medium is debated—some sources describe it as oil on canvas, others as pastel—but its importance in Cassatt’s career is undisputed. After its exhibition in 1881, the work passed through private collections before entering the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where it remains today.

A Woman and a Girl Driving marks a turning point for Cassatt, who had recently joined the Impressionists and was exploring themes of modern womanhood with new confidence. The painting stands as a testament to her technical skill and her commitment to portraying women as active participants in contemporary life.