By: Marla R. Miller
In 2009, Historic Deerfield acquired an indigo blue wholecloth quilt, probably shalloon, associated in family tradition with Hadassah Chapin Ely (ca. 1767–1808) of Springfield and West Springfield, Massachusetts. Though little is known about the artifact, placing the ca. 1785 quilt in a series of contexts can provide insight into the object and the world in which it was created. This foray into “object biography” uses other quilts with comparable design features,
By: Xenia E. Cord
Statewide quilt studies have identified regional trends in quilt construction, but related borders have only rarely been examined. This study looks at eighty-five mid-nineteenth-century quilts with a variety of centerfields that share a common border design, the “vessel, vine, and floral border.” The frequency of collected examples with Ohio origins strongly suggests that Ohio was a source region where the design may have originated and where it proliferated.
By: Joyce Fullerton Smith
Between 1840 and 1844, three quilts attributed to different women were made in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New Egypt, New Jersey. The quilts are inscribed with many of the same names. The purpose of this study is to understand the connections between these quilts. These quilts would be interesting just as examples of a strong regional style, but more importantly, they serve as primary documents of broad community connections that transcend the religious and familial ties frequently associated with Album-style quilts.
» Read more about: Uncoverings 2018 Family, Friends, Merchants, and Religion in the Early 1840s »
By: Ronda Harrell McAllen
Achsah Goodwin Wilkins, one of the most prolific quiltmakers of early nineteenth-century Baltimore, left a legacy of appliquéd counterpanes which were documented by Dr. William Rush Dunton in the 1920s and 1930s. Dunton recorded eighteen counterpanes in the possession of Achsah’s descendants. Recently, two additional pieces have been discovered, bringing the total to twenty pieces, with sixteen attributed to Achsah. Newly uncovered evidence from genealogical research and legal documents reveals,
By: Kathryn Berenson
The late-fourteenth-century Coperta Guicciardini in the National Museum of the Bargello, Florence, and The Tristan Quilt in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, are attributed to a southern Italian atelier. Together they present an illustrated version of an early episode in the legend of Tristan, one of King Arthur’s Round Table knights. Although the furnishings’ narrative imagery derives from Italian versions of Tristan romances, several scenes and details within scenes have no counterpart in these fourteenth-century manuscripts.
» Read more about: Uncoverings 2018 Political Partisanship in the Tristan Furnishings »
By: Kathleen L. Moore
Could two strikingly similar quilts found by chance in Texas and Georgia state quilt documentation books and identified as belonging to two different families have been made by the same maker? Research on these two quilts found separate journeys but amazing coincidences in their histories. Investigation into state documentation projects and the Quilt Index uncovered several more quilts of similar design. The study of these quilts revealed a previously unknown cluster of unique quilt block designs narrowly confined in origin to the southeastern corner of Tennessee and northwestern corner of Georgia in the third and fourth quarters of the nineteenth century.
By: Anita Loscalzo
Baskets of flowers, bowknots, garlands, and swags appear frequently as appliqué, pieced, and whitework motifs in American quilts made in the first half of the nineteenth century. The historical use of these motifs as architectural elements and in porcelain, textiles, wallpaper, and furnishings will be explored, as well as possible routes of their assimilation into the general design vocabulary of American quilt makers. Garlands derived from ancient times,
By: Deborah Cooney and Ronda Harrell McAllen
This paper reexamines the Baltimore Album quilt genre, adding to the substantial body of knowledge generated by previous studies. It analyzes the stylistic change in high-style Baltimore Album motifs that occurred around 1848 and confirms the participation of professionals in block design and preparation. A compilation of new information on quilts made for Protestant ministers documents the role of these quilts in defining a specific Baltimore Album style,
» Read more about: Uncoverings 2017Baltimore Album Quilts: New Research »
By: Dale Drake
Two hundred fifty years ago Acadian refugees from Nova Scotia settled in Louisiana, bringing their weaving traditions with them. Over the next 150 years they wove cotonnade fabrics for clothing and bedding, and by the end of the nineteenth century they were making quilts from the scraps. Twenty four of these quilts from private and public collections were studied in this project, which the author grouped by piecing format and textile type: Acadian format or block format,
By: Rachel May and Linda Welters
The Cushman Collection in the University of Rhode Island’s Historic Textile and Costume Collection includes three unfinished quilt tops and two fabric swatch books, along with over 500 other artifacts. The quilt tops, which were begun in 1833, reveal a family story of North and South that spans two hundred years. The tops were similarly constructed of hexagons with a central star motif, made with the template-pieced mosaic patchwork method.
» Read more about: Uncoverings 2017The Cushman Quilt Tops: A Tale of North and South »
