La Broderie à l'aiguille

Félix Bracquemond

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This early work is somewhat unusual in both subject and style for Bracquemond, now better known for his enigmatic bird studies. The etching depicts a couple on a terrace: a gentleman languidly rests on his elbow while a lavishly dressed woman sits embroidering nearby. The composition seems at first to echo contemporary genre paintings popular at the Salons, yet the relationship between the figures and the meaning of the work remain elusive. "La Broderie" reveals Bracquemond’s continued interest in developing complex, ambiguous scenes and his sheer command of printmaking. In carefully controlling the lines and hatching, Bracquemond deftly mirrored the very act of embroidering with a needle, translating and constructing an image with thread-like lines – his very subject.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art