Design for Dos-à-Dos (unnumbered)
ca. 1870
Medium
Pen and black ink, watercolor and gouache and gum arabic
Dimensions
sheet: 5 13/16 x 8 7/8 in. (14.8 x 22.5 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of William Brewster, 1923
Accession Number
23.112.1333
Tags
Art Historical Context
This delicate design drawing from around 1870 captures a “dos-à-dos” carriage, a stylish vehicle in which passengers sat back-to-back, allowing conversation while enjoying the passing scenery. Created by Brewster & Co., New York’s preeminent coachbuilders, the sheet was likely used to present ideas to prospective clients. Its modest size—just under six by nine inches—belies the careful attention given to every curve of the body, wheel spoke, and canopy. In the years following the Civil War, elegant carriages like this one signaled both wealth and technical sophistication. Brewster & Co. suppl...
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...