Mary Cassatt Postage Stamps | The Boating Party | American Painting Series | Vintage Unused USPS Postage 5c

Your wedding guests will enjoy this touch of art history before they even open the envelope when these Mary Cassatt The Boating Party postage stamps are applied to your invitations or save the dates. This vintage 1966 postage stamp brings Impressionist color, intimacy, and quiet romance to wedding invitations, letters, and special correspondence. For brides planning an art-inspired, museum, waterfront, French-influenced, or elegantly eclectic celebration, the design offers a distinctive way to make the invitation suite feel personal, cultured, and beautifully unlike anything arriving in the everyday mail.

In pristine mint condition and valid for current postage use, each stamp holds a face value of 5-cents. These authentic USPS postage stamps are suitable for current mailing when used with the total required postage based on the weight of your mailing.

STAMP INFORMATION:

• Stamp Name: Mary Cassatt, American Artist
• Stamp Series: American Painting Series
• Year Issued: 1966
• Face Value: 5-cents (USD) per stamp
• Topic(s): Mary Cassatt, The Boating Party, American Art, American Painting, Impressionism, Women Artists, Fine Art, Boating, Mother and Child, Family, National Gallery of Art, Robert J. Jones
• Color(s): Blue, Yellow, Green, Black, Cream, Multicolored
• Mailing Occasions: Wedding Invitations, Save the Dates, Art-Inspired Weddings, Museum Weddings, Waterfront Weddings, Literary Correspondence, Mother’s Day Mail, Thank You Cards, Letters, Special Correspondence
• Printing Method: Giori Press, Engraved
• Scott Number: 1322
• Adhesion Type: Gummed (see adhesion instructions below)
• Stamp Size: 25 × 40 mm / 0.98 × 1.57 in
• Condition: Genuine Unused USPS Postage Stamps, Ready to Use for USPS Mailings, Mint Condition

STAMP DESCRIPTION & HISTORY: Mary Cassatt’s celebrated painting The Boating Party provided the artwork for this 5-cent commemorative, first issued on November 17, 1966, in Washington, D.C. USPS released the stamp as the sixth entry in its annually issued American Painting Series, honoring Cassatt as one of America’s most important painters and printmakers. Stamp designer Robert J. Jones adapted the painting for the small format, while the Bureau of Engraving and Printing produced the issue on the Giori press. Six inks were applied in two passes, allowing the colors to blend and overlap into a broader range of tones.

ABOUT MARY CASSATT: Mary Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker closely associated with the French Impressionists. Born in Pennsylvania in 1844, she spent much of her adult life in France and became known for intimate scenes of women, children, and family life. Her paintings often combined strong composition, expressive color, and unusually perceptive observations of everyday relationships, helping establish her as one of the most significant American artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

ABOUT THE BOATING PARTY: Cassatt painted The Boating Party in 1893–1894. The composition depicts a woman holding a young child while a man rows the boat, using broad areas of color and strong diagonals to create a sense of intimacy and movement. The painting is now part of the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and remains one of Cassatt’s most recognizable works.

MARY CASSATT & IMPRESSIONISM: Cassatt exhibited with the French Impressionists and developed close professional relationships with artists including Edgar Degas. Like other Impressionists, she explored contemporary life, modern composition, and changing approaches to color and light, but her work often focused more intimately on women and children. Her distinctive perspective helped broaden the range of subjects represented within Impressionism and secured her place in both American and European art history.

FINE ART & WEDDING STYLE: The painterly mix of blue, green, yellow, cream, brown, and warm red-orange gives this stamp a sophisticated artistic quality that works beautifully with watercolor stationery, deckled paper, handmade envelopes, museum-inspired invitations, and layered vintage postage. For brides planning art-focused, waterfront, garden, museum, French-inspired, or refined eclectic weddings, the Cassatt design adds genuine fine-art history to the invitation suite.

BOATING, FAMILY & CONNECTION: Beyond its importance as a work of art, The Boating Party captures three figures sharing a quiet moment on the water. That sense of togetherness gives the stamp additional resonance for weddings, family correspondence, birth announcements, and other mail celebrating relationships and milestones.

STAMP MEANING & SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE: The Mary Cassatt, American Artist design symbolizes connection, tenderness, family, creativity, movement, and shared experience. The figures traveling together across the water suggest companionship and a journey undertaken in company, while Cassatt’s artistic legacy represents independence, creative vision, and the courage to establish one’s own path. For weddings and meaningful correspondence, this stamp expresses intimacy, artistry, and a life journey shared with those we love.

STAMP SERIES HISTORY: The American Painting Series highlighted major works of art by notable American painters, reproducing museum-quality paintings in miniature on postage stamps. The Mary Cassatt issue was the sixth annual release in the series and featured The Boating Party, bringing one of Cassatt’s best-known works into everyday American correspondence. The series helped introduce significant American paintings and artists to a broad national audience through the mail.