Design for Roof Seat Break, no. 4015
1888
Medium
Graphite, pen and black ink, watercolor and gouache with gum arabic
Dimensions
sheet: 6 5/8 x 9 1/2 in. (16.8 x 24.1 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of William Brewster, 1923
Accession Number
23.112.473
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
Art Historical Context
This delicate 1888 design drawing captures Brewster & Co.’s vision for a “Roof Seat Break,” a sporting carriage popular among the Gilded Age elite for leisurely drives and fox hunts. Founded in New York in 1856, Brewster & Co. became America’s foremost coachbuilder, supplying custom vehicles to Vanderbilts and Astors alike. The sheet’s small scale—barely postcard size—belies the grandeur of the finished vehicle it helped create. Executed in graphite, pen and ink, watercolor, and gouache, the drawing reveals the meticulous process behind nineteenth-century carriage manufacture. Such presentati...
About the Artist
Brewster & Co.
**Brewster & Co.** Brewster & Company, a premier American coachbuilder renowned for its exquisite carriage designs, was established in 1810 in New Haven, Connecticut, by James Brewster (1788–1866). Born in 1788, Brewster trained as a wagonmaker's apprentice starting at age 16 in Northampton, Massachusetts, before relocating to New Haven, where he set up his workshop and quickly gained acclaim for...