Rooftops, Brooklyn

Fidelia Bridges

ca. 1867 · Watercolor and gouache on tan hot-pressed paper · The American Wing

"Rooftops, Brooklyn"—along with "Garden View, Brooklyn" (2021.161.1)—dates from Bridges’ residency in the home of merchant William August Brown and his family, for whom she had first worked as a governess, in Salem, Massachusetts. In 1860, the Browns made it financially possible for Bridges to study with William Trost Richards at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. She returned in 1863 to Brooklyn, where the Browns provided her with a studio on the top floor of their brownstone at 93 1st Place, in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood. It was from a window in that studio that she rendered "Rooftops, Brooklyn," an evocative view of an early evening sky with varied domestic and commercial buildings at both close and distant range.

Artist

Fidelia Bridges

Date

ca. 1867

Medium

Watercolor and gouache on tan hot-pressed paper

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Gift of Max and Pamela Berry, 2021