Pierre Bacot

Henrietta Johnston

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The pastels of the Bacots (see also 47.103.23) were among the first that Johnston executed in Charleston, South Carolina, just following her arrival there from Dublin. The artist rendered the Bacots’ facial features with precision and blended colors, particularly in the hair, as she had done in Ireland. Pierre Bacot, also called Peter, was born in Tours, France, in 1684 and was brought by his family to South Carolina as an infant. After his father’s death in 1702, Bacot moved to Goose Creek, where he bought and sold land for a living. He married Marianne Fleur Du Gue sometime after 1705.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art