The Coiffure (Mary Cassatt, 1890-91) is a drypoint and aquatint print showing a woman arranging her hair before a mirror; on the AP Art History exam it's the go-to example of japonisme, the late 19th-century craze for Japanese woodblock prints that reshaped European composition and perspective.
The Coiffure is a print by American Impressionist Mary Cassatt, made in 1890-91 using drypoint and aquatint. It shows a woman seated in front of a mirror, quietly pinning up her hair. No drama, no audience, just a private everyday moment from a woman's life. That intimacy is half the point. Cassatt, as a woman artist, had access to the domestic spaces that male Impressionists rarely painted from the inside.
The other half of the point is HOW it's made. Cassatt saw a major exhibition of Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints in Paris in 1890 and immediately reworked her style around them. The Coiffure borrows their flattened space, bold contour lines, large areas of unmodeled pastel color, elevated viewpoint, and cropped, off-center composition. In other words, this is a European artist deliberately absorbing a non-European visual language, which is exactly the kind of cross-cultural interaction Topic 4.1 is built around.
The Coiffure lives in Unit 4 (Later Europe and Americas, 1750-1980 CE), specifically Topic 4.1, Interactions Within and Across Cultures. It supports both learning objectives there. For 4.1.A (how cultural practices and setting affect art), the print reflects the era's social changes, including women's growing visibility and Cassatt's position as a woman documenting women's private lives. For 4.1.B (how interactions with other cultures affect art), it's textbook japonisme. The CED's essential knowledge says artists in this period were affected by exposure to diverse cultures, and The Coiffure is one of the cleanest demonstrations in the whole 250-work image set. When the exam asks you to explain cross-cultural influence in 19th-century European or American art, this work answers the question almost by itself.
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Impressionism (Unit 4)
Cassatt exhibited with the Impressionists, and The Coiffure shares their interest in fleeting, candid modern-life moments. But the print's flat color and strong outlines show her pushing past Impressionist brushwork toward Japanese print aesthetics.
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (Unit 4)
Both works show European artists borrowing from non-European art, Cassatt from Japanese prints and Picasso from African masks. Pairing them lets you argue that cross-cultural borrowing was a sustained pattern, not a one-off, which is gold for the influence-of-other-cultures LEQ.
Feminism (Unit 4)
The CED highlights women's rights movements as part of this era's social change. Cassatt working as a professional woman artist, and choosing women's private rituals as serious subject matter, makes The Coiffure useful evidence for how gender shaped both art making and content.
Portraiture (Units 1-8)
The Coiffure isn't a portrait of a named sitter, and that matters. It's a genre scene of an anonymous woman, which lets you contrast it with formal portraiture and discuss how modern artists shifted from commemorating individuals to capturing everyday life.
Multiple-choice questions about The Coiffure almost always target the same idea, the Japanese influence. Expect stems asking why ukiyo-e prints influenced Impressionists like Cassatt, what broader cultural phenomenon her flattened perspective reflects (japonisme), or what explains the stylistic shift toward flat space, bold outlines, and elevated viewpoints in late 19th-century art. The 2021 LEQ asked students to identify one painting, drawing, or print influenced by another culture and analyze that influence, and The Coiffure is a near-perfect choice for that prompt. To use it well, you need the full identification (Mary Cassatt, The Coiffure, 1890-91, drypoint and aquatint) plus specific visual evidence of Japanese influence, like the tilted-up floor plane, cropped framing, and unmodulated color areas. Don't just say 'it looks Japanese.' Name the formal qualities and tie them to ukiyo-e prints.
Both are Unit 4 works shaped by non-European art, so students swap their sources on the exam. Keep them straight by source and mood. Cassatt's The Coiffure (1890-91) borrows from Japanese ukiyo-e prints and stays gentle and intimate. Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) borrows from African masks and Iberian sculpture and is deliberately jarring and fragmented, pointing toward Cubism. Same broader pattern of cross-cultural borrowing, totally different sources, dates, and effects.
The Coiffure is a drypoint and aquatint print by Mary Cassatt from 1890-91, showing a woman arranging her hair in front of a mirror.
It is the AP image set's clearest example of japonisme, the late 19th-century European fascination with Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.
Its Japanese borrowings include flattened space, bold outlines, flat areas of soft color, an elevated viewpoint, and cropped composition.
It supports Topic 4.1's learning objectives by showing how exposure to another culture (4.1.B) and the era's social context, including women's changing roles (4.1.A), shaped art making.
As a woman artist depicting a private female ritual, Cassatt offered an insider's view of domestic life that male Impressionists rarely had access to.
It's a strong LEQ pick for prompts about European or American artists influenced by other cultures, like the 2021 LEQ Q2.
The Coiffure is an 1890-91 drypoint and aquatint print by American Impressionist Mary Cassatt, showing a woman fixing her hair before a mirror. It's in the AP 250 image set under Unit 4 as a prime example of Japanese influence on Western art.
No, and this is a common exam mistake. The Coiffure is a print, made with drypoint and aquatint, part of a set of color prints Cassatt created after seeing a major exhibition of Japanese woodblock prints in Paris in 1890. Getting the medium right matters for full identification points on FRQs.
Cassatt borrowed ukiyo-e techniques directly, including flattened perspective, bold contour lines, broad flat areas of color, an elevated viewpoint, and intimate everyday subject matter. This borrowing is called japonisme, and it's what most multiple-choice questions about this work test.
Both show European artists absorbing non-Western influences, but Cassatt drew on Japanese prints around 1890 for a quiet domestic scene, while Picasso drew on African masks in 1907 for an aggressive, fragmented composition that launched Cubism. Different source cultures, different dates, different effects.
Cassatt was one of the few women in the Impressionist circle, and her focus on women's private lives ties directly to the CED's emphasis on women's rights movements catalyzing social change in this era. She's useful evidence for arguments about both gender and cross-cultural exchange in Unit 4.