Nightcap
Unknown Artist
ca. 1868
Medium
Linen
Classification
Nightcap
Culture
American
Department
Costume Institute
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Clifton Goff, 1935
Accession Number
2009.300.4261
Art Historical Context
This watercolor drawing by French artist Jean-Victor Bertin (1767–1842) presents an Italian landscape centered on an abbey and accompanying religious figures. Titled *Paysage Italien: L'Abbaye et Les Religieux* (“Italian Landscape: The Abbey and the Religious”), the work reflects 19th-century French artists’ enduring interest in picturesque Italian scenery, blending architecture, nature, and human presence in a harmonious composition. Executed in watercolor over graphite and heightened with gouache, the piece demonstrates a typical mixed-media approach of the period. Graphite provided the und...