Mitt

Art Historical Context

This watercolor and graphite rendering, titled *Mitt* and created around 1938 by Marie Alain, belongs to the Index of American Design at the National Gallery of Art. The Index was a Depression-era Federal Art Project that hired artists to create precise visual records of American decorative arts, folk crafts, and everyday objects from colonial times through the nineteenth century. Alain’s work on paperboard uses watercolor to capture color and surface while graphite supplies clean outlines and fine details—a technique typical of Index plates, which aimed for scientific accuracy rather than personal expression. The subject, a mitt, reflects the project’s interest in functional yet beautifully crafted items such as textiles, leatherwork, and accessories that reveal regional traditions and makers’ ingenuity. Beyond documenting vanishing objects, the Index provided employment for artists and built a national archive of American design. Today these renderings, including Alain’s *Mitt*, invite visitors to appreciate both the original crafts and the skilled illustrators who preserved them for future generations.