Parasol

Art Historical Context

**Parasol** is a precise and elegant watercolor, graphite, and penand-ink drawing created by Virginia Berge between 1935 and1942. Measuring roughly 15½ by 12 inches, it to the Index of American, a landmark New Deal project now in the collection of the National Gallery of. The Index employed hundreds of artists during the Great Depression to document America’s decorative arts and material culture with near-scientific accuracy. Berge’s rendering of a parasol—likely an example of 18th- or 19th-century fashion or craft—uses watercolor for subtle color and texture, graphite for modeling, and ink for crisp structural lines. These mixed-media techniques were typical of the project’s documentary style, which treated everyday and luxury objects as worthy of careful study. Beyond its visual charm, the work forms part of a vast visual archive that preserved the design heritage of American-made objects at a time when many were disappearing. It stands as both a testament to the skill of Depression-era artists and a valuable record of historic craftsmanship for scholars and visitors today.

About the Artist

Virginia Berge · 1855–present

Virginia Berge was an American artist active around 1935 whose surviving body of work consists of meticulously rendered watercolor and graphite illustrations of historic clothing and accessories. Her early life and formal training are not well documented. She is known exclusively through her participation in the Index of American Design, a Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration t...