Wedding Coin Purse c. 1937

Ellen Duncan made this drawing, of what looks like a wedding coin purse, using colored pencil, sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. The repetition of the straw boater shape, once as a hat, and once as a kind of plinth for the purse, is really pleasing. I think the image uses a reduced palette which really gives it a sense of clarity. Looking closely, the colored pencil marks are carefully and evenly distributed. The texture is so consistent across the straw hats and woven bag – and there is something very satisfying about the way the weave has been captured. I keep coming back to the lines of the purse string: the long, elegant verticals contrast with the almost frantic loops of the handle on the left. There is something lovely about the contrast between the implied depth of the hat and bag and the flat background. This reminds me of the work of my friend, the painter Lois Dodd, who also finds such magic in the mundane. And, like her work, it makes you realize that the world around you is full of simple moments of unexpected beauty.