Coin Purse

Art Historical Context

This watercolor and graphite rendering of a coin purse, created around 1938 by Gladys Cook, forms part of the Index of American Design at the National Gallery of Art. The Index was a New Deal-era Federal Art Project that employed artists during the Great Depression to create a comprehensive visual record of American decorative arts, folk crafts, and everyday objects from the colonial period through the 19th century. Cook’s precise work on paperboard captures the form, texture, and details of this modest yet functional item, typical of the Index’s documentary style. Watercolor provided luminous color and surface qualities, while graphite supplied fine structural lines, allowing artists to produce accurate, almost photographic records without the need for photography in every case. These illustrations celebrated the ingenuity of American makers and helped preserve knowledge of vanishing craft traditions. Today the Index’s thousands of drawings serve as an invaluable archive for historians, designers, and the public, reminding us that even humble objects like a coin purse carry cultural stories of daily life, skill, and national heritage.

About the Artist

Gladys Cook · 1855–present

Gladys Cook was an American illustrator and commercial artist whose work appeared widely in popular magazines and books during the mid-twentieth century. She is particularly remembered for her contributions to the world of children's illustration and her facility with a range of print media, producing images that were at once technically polished and warmly accessible to broad audiences. Cook's s...