Mary Cassatt was an Impressionist painter and printmaker from America. She is famous for painting subjects from the normal domestic and the social lives of women; she was particularly fond of showing the intimate bond shared by mothers and children.

An accomplished and versatile artist, Mary Cassatt could paint with mastery in oil as well as print mediums. She worked mostly in oil until 1879, after which she took to making pastels encouraged by her close friend and Impressionist painter Edgar Degas.

Cassatt's subjects were women and children and she set her character in everyday domestic settings. Her lush stroke work and eye for detail are the hallmarks of her painting style. In the Five O'clock Tea, Cassatt has given equal attention to the family heirloom as to the figures in this rather atypical image of a mundane domestic ritual of afternoon tea.

The detailed artwork in the Five O'clock Tea holds the viewer's imagination. Cassatt's eye for details was so keen that she even painted the women's clothes with exquisite detail. The vertical lines of the background wall add depth to the painting while matching in color with the upholstery of the sofa and the tea table. Cassatt's study of Japanese Prints helped her understand that the background of a composition was as important as the foreground. She also realized that creating a tension between the foreground and background would immediately capture the propinquity of vision, as well as help shift focus between reality and perception. She used these principles beautifully in the Five O'clock tea painting.

When the French critic Paul Mantz saw this painting in the 5^th Impressionist exhibition, he complained, "The wretched sugar bowl remains floating in the air like a dream."

The quality of her draughtsmanship was excellent and this can be seen in all the media that Cassatt worked with, especially pastel. Particularly partial to the theme of mother and child, she made several paintings expressing a range of feelings and emotions.