Emile Bernard first traveled to Italy in March 1893, and during this visit he stopped in Rome, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, and Venice. His drawings from this period typically use strong black contours and flat areas of color or shadow. In this drawing, Bernard captures a narrow, winding street populated with men and women in an unidentified Italian village or city. The sun is not visible, and the buildings are cast in a series of atmospheric shadows. This drawing, which was perhaps made from life, does not correspond to a known painting from this period (Jean-Jacques Luthi, Emile Bernard: Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint. Paris, 1982). The Morgan Library & Museum drawing is similar in style and media as his ink and wash drawing of the Forum of Augustus in Rome, currently in an unknown location (Raffaele de Grada, Emile Bernard. Milan, 2003, p. 71).
Signed at bottom center, in pen and black ink, "E. Bernard".