Lydia Crocheting in the Garden at Marly, by Mary Cassatt

The Amon Carter Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York have arranged a temporary trade of a couple of masterworks from each collection. The Carter has loaned out Swimming (1895) by Thomas Eakins and Idle Hours (ca. 1894) by William Merritt Chase for the Met’s current exhibition, American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915. In return, the Carter gets Mary Cassattt’s Lydia Crocheting in the Garden at Marly, Eakins’ The Artist’s Wife and His Setter Dog, the Met’s first-round draft pick in 2010 and a player to be named later. (OK, maybe not those last two things.)

The two Met paintings will be on view in Fort Worth through Jan. 25, 2010. If you’d like to know more about them, the Carter is hosting a free gallery talk about the pair on Nov. 12 at 6 p.m.

The Artist’s Wife and His Setter Dog, by Thomas Eakins