Carpet Bag 1935 - 1942

Marie Mitchell made this watercolour drawing of a carpet bag sometime around the late 19th or early 20th century, though we don't know exactly when. I love how the whole thing is so dedicated to pattern, like a game of seeing how many different motifs can be squeezed onto one surface. The texture of the bag looks thick and nubbly, like a tapestry. Mitchell really captures the way the colours would shift and change depending on the light. Zoom in on that big, creamy swirl in the middle. Notice how she uses these tiny strokes to mimic the texture of the fabric? It's so delicate and precise. And then, down in the corner, there's this ghost of a bag, a little sketch that shows the bare bones of the thing. It reminds me a bit of those early modernist still lifes, like Cezanne, where you can see the artist working through the problem of how to represent something real on a flat surface. Except, in this case, it's a carpet bag instead of a bowl of fruit. Maybe Mitchell had seen some paintings by Edouard Vuillard, another painter with a love of domestic interiors, and intricate patterned fabrics. Anyway, it's a beautiful drawing.