The rendez-vous

In a letter dated 3 September 1998, Dr. Ilene Susan Fort writes, "During the late 1870s and early 1880s Bridgman painted a number of street scenes and a few interiors in which his cast of charcters were usually couples involved in quiet conversation. The rendezvous is an excellent example of such imagery. Moreover, the handling demonstrates Bridgman's slight loosening of his brushwork and increased fluidity during the 1880s. The device of inserting a doorway in the background through which sunlight pours in offering a contrast to the shadowy foreground appears repeatedly in the early 1880s, as in Oriental interior, 1882 (National Academy of Design).

Straw hats such as the one worn by the man in our picture were worn by both men and women in the Arabian Peninsula. Bridgman did not visit this area of the East but might have known of such attire through illustrated books that were being published at the time; however Moroccan peasant men in the rural districts also wore straw hats, but of a slightly different shape. During his second trip to Algeria, in 1879 Bridgman finally left the cities and nearby mountain regions of the coastal area to explore deep into south Algeria and the poorer Saharan desert region (the Maghrib). In The rendezvous Bridgman seems to have demonstrated his new awareness of rural costume combining it with the more familiar Moroccan attire of the woman."

We are grateful to Dr. Ilene Susan Fort for her assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.