A mother holds a child on her lap in a small boat while a man in dark clothes rows, his back to us. The boat cuts diagonally across a bright blue sea. Mary Cassatt painted it in 1893–94 on the French Riviera.

The high viewpoint, the flat areas of color and the bold shape of the yellow boat come from the Japanese prints Cassatt admired. It was one of the largest and most ambitious paintings of her career.