Two years after arriving in Paris, the family moved to Heidelberg and then to Darmstadt so her brother Aleck could further his studies in engineering. Another brother, Robert, died in Darmstadt in 1855. The family moved back to Philadelphia by way of Paris, where they stopped to see the Universal Exposition, which included art by (among others) Ingres and Delacroix. Gustave Courbet's work was exhibited outside the Exposition in his own pavilion. Mary was eleven years old at this time.
Six years later, She enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, which was then the most prestigious art school in the country. She remained there for four years, studying drawing and sculpture, drawing from life and making copies of paintings. She thought that making copies of existing masterpieces was the proper way to understand and master art.
In 1866, she moved once again to Paris, studied for a short time with a known artist named Charles Chaplin (not the comic, however), and spent most of the next four years copying paintings and making sketches during her frequent trips to the countryside.
When the Franco-Prussian war broke out, Mary returned to Philadelphia but went back to Europe when the war ended. She settled in Parma, Italy, and studied the work of Corregio and Parmagianino while attending the Academy to study engraving. In 1872, one of her paintings was accepted in the Paris Salon, and, in 1873, she finally settled permanently in Paris.
Mary soon met Louisine Waldron Elder and persuaded her to purchase a pastel by Edgar Degas. The painting became the first Impressionist work to reach the USA, and the first work in what would become the famous H.O. Havemayer Collection, one of the foundation blocks of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She soon met Degas himself and became his good friend
She had been accepted five years in a row at the Paris Salon but, at the request of Degas, left the Salon and joined the independents. After that, she showed her work with the independents.
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