Women embraced sewing machines for everyday use. Mary Sneed used hers to machine-stitch a tiny grid on the white squares and outline the basket weave print. Family tradition stated that Mary Sneed made this with one of the first sewing machines in Texas, suggesting the pride women felt in having the latest technology.
Made by Mary DeLoach Sneed (1807-1905), Waco, Texas
Cotton
82” x 94”
Gift of Martha Hunt in honor of the descendants of Mary Deloach and George Washington Sneed, 92.1
Japanese porcelain styles influenced this vase’s shape and decoration. First Lady Caroline Scott Harrison is said to have given this as a wedding gift in 1891.
9” x 2.75”
Friends of the Museum Purchase, 66.96
Women personalized their crazy quilts—which otherwise look very similar—by adding embroidered or appliqued motifs chosen for aesthetic reasons or to express their interests.
Helen Dounce included two popular sports in her “crazy”: the high-wheeled bicycle and roller skates. As she was in her late thirties to early fifties at the time she made the quilt, it’s unlikely she herself engaged in these sports. The high-wheeler was dangerous and mostly ridden by men.
Helen L. Dounce
Silk
67” x 72”
Gift of Virginia Mayo Herrick, 86.47
After Georgie Davis, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper
Engraving
Library of Congress
Roller skating and bicycling were huge crazes, but skates were cheaper, while offering similarly thrilling speed. Roller skating rinks opened up in cities across America.
Japanese ceramics were appreciated for their beauty, but also became status symbols, indicating the owner’s refined aesthetic sensibility and awareness of current decorating trends.
Japan
Porcelain with polychrome enamel decoration
3” diameter
Gift of Helen E. Fretz, 86.144
Japanese vases and fans on this quilt testify to the craze for “Japonisme.” Other motifs popular in the 1880s seen here include old-fashioned children taken from popular illustrators, and favorite designs of the Aesthetic movement (peacock feathers, a sunflower, and even a portrait of Oscar Wilde).
Amelia Trowbridge (1858-1931), Melrose, Massachusetts
Silks with linen lace, silk and metallic embroidery thread, cotton backing
Gift of Helen L. McGilvery
Ralph Caldecott, The Three Jovial Huntsmen, Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library
The New York Public Library Digital Collections
The crazy quilt era was also a golden age of illustration. Kate Greenaway remains the most famous illustrator of old-fashioned scenes today, but others were equally popular at the time. Crazy quilts were dumping grounds for popular culture trends, and old-timey children, now generically called Kate Greenaway figures, appeared on numerous “crazies.”
Alfred Concanen and Stannard & Son, lithographers, Charles Sheard & Co., publisher
Color lithograph and ink on paper
Victoria and Albert Museum, # S.3931-2013
Many crazy quilts motifs were taken from the Aesthetic Movement. This design movement rejected mass-produced goods and poorly-designed revivals of older eras, preferring patterns inspired by the natural world. Its adherents also embraced new (to the West) Japanese forms and motifs.
Look for many of the Aesthetic Movement’s—and crazy quilts’—favorite motifs on the cover of this comic song’s sheet music: sunflowers, peacock feathers, lilies, and Japanese ceramics and fans.
OSCAR WILDE,” 1882
Photograph by Napoleon Sarony, New York
Oscar Wilde, the most famous Aesthetic Movement adherent, toured the United States in 1882 and 1883 to widespread publicity, with both photos and caricatures published in newspapers. His long hair, velvet jacket and breeches, and effete manner fascinated all, and offended many strait-laced provincial Americans. Amelia Trowbridge may have attended his lecture in Boston in 1882. The same embroidery appears on another “crazy,” suggesting a commercial pattern source.
Japanese women in kimono, and butterflies cut to partially emerge from a leaf, decorate this fan undoubtedly made for the export market.
Japan
Paper leaf with bamboo guards and sticks
9” wide
Gift of Eleanora T. Velenovsky, 86.121.8
With the shape of one type of Japanese fan and the pattern of a crazy quilt, this fan combines trends of its day. Fans of this shape are often embroidered on crazy quilts.
United States
Silks with metal spangles, wood handle
10” x 17”
Friends of the Museum Purchase, 2001.8
Cyclists enjoyed high-wheelers’ speed. Less fun was tumbling over the top after hitting any small obstacle. By 1890, the bicycle design we are familiar with had eclipsed the high-wheeler. Meanwhile, it was a brave parent who allowed her child to ride this bicycle.
Metal and wood
16” x 34”
Friends of the Museum Purchase, 2000.53.1-2
Public figures’ deaths often inspired the production of mourning badges (ribbons) like this one. “The Union Must & Shall Be Preserved” refers to a crisis shortly after Jackson took office in 1828 when the South vehemently protested huge tariffs passed by the previous administration. Jackson threatened military action if South Carolina seceded.
Made in the United States
Printed silk
5” x 11.25”
Gift of Leo Schwartz, 90.23
Andrew Jackson was the first candidate to produce commercial campaign goods, appealing to voters who had increasing sway in elections. Prior elections had depended largely on state legislatures to select the Electoral College. Jackson, embittered after losing the four-way 1824 election despite winning both the popular and electoral vote, immediately began an aggressive campaign for 1828.
Jackson’s record is mixed, his democratic reforms overshadowed by the atrocity of his removal of Native Americans from the Southeastern states, collectively known as the “Trail of Tears.”
Two colorways of a print with tiny portraits of Jackson between American eagles adorn this quilt. Quite a few quilts, and at least one dress, survive with this fabric in a total of three known colorways, suggesting large output.
United States
Cotton
101” x 96”
Loan courtesy of Debby Cooney
Nathan Wheeler (American, 1789-1849)
Courtesy Library of Congress
Jackson is depicted here in the rank he held at the 1815 Battle of New Orleans, Major General, though with the gray hair of his Presidential years. Reverse paintings on glass depicting American political and literary figures were exported from Germany and China to the American market; this one may be either German or American.
United States or Germany
Reverse painting on glass
8.25” x 10.75”
Gift of Rolfe Towle Teague, 87.45
According to family tradition, Andrew Jackson gave a set of these plates to his friend James Buchanan, the donor’s great-grandfather, whose home in southwestern Virginia was said to be a stopping point for Jackson on his journeys between Washington and his home in Tennessee.
Staffordshire, England
Pearlware with copper luster and transfer printed decoration
8.75” diameter
Gift of Lucy Susong Clark, in memory of Charles Claiborne Buchanan, 70.84
Foreign manufacturers were well accustomed to making goods for the American market. This vase was likely available in Europe without the inscription “Gen. Andrew Jackson” added for American customers.
Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic)
Wheel-cut glass
2.75” diameter
Gift of Cincinnati Chapter, NSDAR, 68.209
“General Jackson, the Hero of New Orleans” is inscribed above a portrait of Andrew Jackson, who despite the military reference is depicted here in civilian dress. It was probably produced during his presidency, as it is based on an 1828 engraving. The plate nearby uses the same design.
Staffordshire, England
Pearlware with copper luster and transfer printed decoration
5” diameter
Gift of Carroll Campbell Strickland, Marvin Harrison Campbell, Joseph Andrew Campbell, and Davis Allan Campbell, 2013.18.3
Women embraced sewing machines for everyday use. Mary Sneed used hers to machine-stitch a tiny grid on the white squares and outline the basket weave print. Family tradition stated that Mary Sneed made this with one of the first sewing machines in Texas, suggesting the pride women felt in having the latest technology.
Made by Mary DeLoach Sneed (1807-1905), Waco, Texas
Cotton
82” x 94”
Gift of Martha Hunt in honor of the descendants of Mary Deloach and George Washington Sneed, 92.1
Sewing machines were marketed with layaway plans and other lures, making them increasingly affordable. Machines sped up tedious sewing, allowing time for creative needlework. Few inventors managed to design machines viable for home use and also market them successfully. Along with Isaac Singer, Wheeler & Wilson dominated the market.
The Wheeler & Wilson Mfg. Company, Bridgeport, Connecticut
Cast iron, steel, and walnut
26” x 20”
Friends of the Museum Purchase, 96.73.1
Long assumed to be a decorative riff on the American flag, this pattern’s source was recently identified by a quilt historian as the flag flying over Fort Sumter, South Carolina, when Confederates besieged it in 1861. “Garrison flags” flown at forts commonly arranged the stars in a central diamond design. Fort Sumter’s toured the country and became a rallying symbol for the Union, so its design was well-known.
Margaret Dodge made at least four patriotic bedspreads during the war; the DAR Museum owns two. A third was displayed at Brooklyn’s 1864 Sanitary Fair which raised money for the troops, and was afterwards presented to President Lincoln.
Margaret English Wood Dodge (c1781-1873), Brooklyn, New York
Cotton
78” x 66”
Gift of Elsa S. Dorrance Lockwood, in memory of Nellie T. Sutton and George Alfred Sutton, 87.67.1
Copyrighted by S.T. MacDougall
Courtesy Library of Congress
Months after South Carolina seceded, United States troops still held Fort Sumter in Charleston. Confederate troops, firing the first shots of the Civil War, eventually took the Fort. The fort’s flag became famous, inspiring this print and the quilt pattern, which adapted the flag’s diagonally-oriented field of stars.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Courtesy of Dawn Ronningen
At the turn of the 20th century, many women became involved in social and political issues. Using their perceived role as moral compasses of society, they advocated reform in areas such as temperance, child welfare, birth control, labor conditions, and suffrage. The WCTU was one of many organizations which eventually succeeded in getting the 18th Amendment to the Constitution passed, banning alcohol until its repeal in 1933.
Despite quilting being a widespread feminine activity, few of the women’s reform movements used quilts as fundraisers or as statements of support. Many progressive women preferred activism not linked to traditional domestic endeavors such as quilt-making.
Beaver and Vernango Counties, Pennsylvania
Cotton
90” x 75”
Loan courtesy of Julie Silber
The ten-week Spanish-American war, mostly forgotten today, was fought off the coast of Cuba to support Cuba’s war of independence from Spain. US-Spanish relations were tense, with the sensationalist “yellow press” media stirring anti-Spanish sentiments. When the naval ship USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor, the United States went to war supporting Cuba. With Spain’s defeat, Cuba gained independence while we took over control of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines from Spain.
Despite its short duration, the war inspired patriotic items like this quilt. Several in this exact design survive, suggesting a pattern may have been printed in a nationally distributed media outlet.
Beaver and Vernango Counties, Pennsylvania
Cotton
90” x 75”
Loan courtesy of Julie Silber
The USS Oregon, one of the United States’ first battleships, became famous for its part in the Battle of Santiago, the attack on Cuba’s harbor in July of 1898. She went on to participate in our military actions in the Philippines and the Boxer Rebellion in China, in 1899-1900.
Probably made in the United States
Tin and wood
2.5” x 18”
Gift of Jacqueline Ernest Merritt, 2006.15.35.2
As a Presidential candidate in 1844, Henry Clay opposed the annexation of Texas, a move many feared would lead to war with Mexico. His campaign reached out to women who, though lacking the right to vote, might sway male relatives’ votes. Women, Clay believed, would prefer a candidate who kept their men out of a war.
Rebecca Lombart made this while living in Philadelphia, with two Clay ribbons in the border and another saying simply “Abstinence.” Clay’s anti-abolitionist stance hurt him in anti-slavery Philadelphia, but Lombart and others apparently found enough in his platform to win their support.
Rebecca (Lombart) Williams (1819-1880), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Silk
100” x 106”
Gift of Grace Ann Gartland, 2003.24
New York, New York, John L. MaGee
Watercolor on paper
Gift of Hannah Weston Chapter, NSDAR, 5401
Many ribbon designs were made available nationwide for the Clay campaign; printers could add text specific to their area’s campaign events. This ribbon’s design is the same as one of those on the quilt, but announces a barbecue in Pennsylvania.
Anti-elitism and branding are nothing new in politics. Born a wealthy Virginia landowner, William Henry Harrison was re-branded as a frontiersman. The opposition insultingly called Harrison a provincial sitting “in his log cabin drinking hard cider,” but Harrison correctly predicted this folksy depiction would play well with the American voter.
Probably made in the United States, Design by “A.M. Williamson”
Cotton
25.25” x 27.75”
Gift of Marion Ashby Buck, 52.92
Although Clay never won the presidency, he gained lasting national popularity among members of the Whig party. Many homes and businesses displayed printed portraits of political figures. This one purportedly hung in the Burnham Tavern in Mathias, Maine.
New York, New York, John L. MaGee
Watercolor on paper
16” x 12”
Gift of Hannah Weston Chapter, NSDAR, 5401
Political songs promoting presidential campaigns first became popular in 1830 with the presidential race of William Henry Harrison. This 1842 melody was written for the 1844 Clay campaign.
Boston, Massachusetts, Oliver Ditson, Publisher
Printed paper
10.5” x 13.875”
Gift of the Rhode Island State Society, NSDAR, 84.75
By the 1840s, mass production of glass, ceramics, and other goods was well underway in America, making ephemeral goods like this affordable to a wide consumer base.
Sandwich, Massachusetts, Boston and Sandwich Glass Co.
Pressed Glass
3.5” diameter
Gift of Katherine Wyman Vaughan, in memory of her mother, Bella Ristine Wyman, 59.111
Pennsylvania
Walnut
49” x 96”
Gift of the Wisconsin State Society, 91.98
Boldly colored, machine-woven silks used recently developed chemical dyes to make a striking quilt. When Maria Key made this for her ten-year-old grandson, she had been using the latest fabrics in her quilt making for at least forty years. Her quilt of about 1840, now at the Maryland Historical Society, used cottons reflecting the latest design and technology trends of its day.
Maria Louisa Harris Key (1804-1879), Leonardtown, Maryland
Silk with cotton backing
78” x 96”
Gift of Nelly Key Thompson, 2010.47
Colorfast dyes available after 1840 spurred the mid-century red and green quilt craze. “Turkey red,” a complicated dye process, was widely available to American calico printers by 1840. Green had to be dyed in two steps (yellow, then blue) until late in the 1800s, but a more reliable option called “chrome green” provided the leafy and emerald hues seen in mid-century quilts.
Sarah Hall Gwyer (1819-1882), North Carolina or Omaha, Nebraska
Cotton
94” x 94.5”
Gift of Jack and Patricia Glass honoring the Glass, Schlossberg, Gwyer, and Yates Families, 85.62.3
Approximately fifty different prints in just one quilt testify to the proliferation of roller-printed cottons available to quilters by this time.
Probably made in Maryland
Cotton
84” x 93”
Gift of George S. and Catherine Waring Barnes, 95.99.1
Painted wood
28” x 98”
Friends of the Museum Purchase, 2000.33
All of America was enthralled in 1932 by the tragic story of the kidnapping and death of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh’s toddler son, Charles Lindbergh Jr. Media across the country followed the story from the investigation through the eventual trial of the alleged kidnapper.
Why would anyone commemorate this tragedy on a quilt? Just as countless quilters made quilts after the attacks of September 11, it is more about process than product. Sewing and embroidering allow for meditation and the processing of horrific loss. The result becomes a respectful memorial.
United States
Cotton with cotton embroidery
73” x 86”
Loan courtesy of Polly Mello
The Lindbergh quilt’s blocks copy photos that appeared in newspapers covering the kidnapping investigation and trial. Two versions of this four-generation photo can be seen in the top and third rows.
Illustrating a popular story of its day, this quilt is akin to a Disney princess or superhero bedspread. The source here is the bestselling comic poem Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque, which inspired two sequels. Author William Combe spoofed the era’s fad for dramatic landscapes and their supposed power to inspire deep emotional reactions in the viewer. Pastor Syntax embarks on a trip to seek “the picturesque,” only to fall into a series of unheroic mishaps.
Virginia
Cotton possibly printed by John Marshall & Sons, Manchester (U.K.)
73” x 86”
Gift of The Bargain Loft, 91.61
Elizabeth Margaret Chandler’s watercolor accompanies her transcription of a contemporary poem about a ruined English abbey, a typical topic for romantic poetry and art. Many women collected quotations and poetry that they found moving or meaningful. Chandler, an award-winning poet and writer in her own right, wrote mostly about slavery and abolition.
Assembled by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, Pennsylvania
Watercolor and ink on paper
Gift of Margaret Merritt Broecker, 83.8.2
Harriet Thorne Gibson of New Hampshire took her set of blue plates with her as she moved to homes in Vermont, Québec, and Wisconsin.
M.T. & Co, England
Pearlware with transfer printed decoration
8” diameter
Gift of Alice Given Brenton, 5087
Thomas Rowlandson, one of England’s premier caricaturists, illustrated all three Dr. Syntax adventures. The quilt combines elements from these eleven prints, which are just a selection of the first tour’s illustrations. Some illustrations lent just a small detail or background figure to the toile fabric design, other figures are more prominent.
Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), London
Watercolor on paper
11” wide
Friends of the Museum Purchase 2018.7.1-11
Like many English ceramic factories, James and Ralph Clews exported their wares to the United States. Popular motifs of the day included the
Dr. Syntax series. Syntax’s second sequel, “Dr. Syntax in Search of a Wife” (1821), was the source of this scene, with the bachelor minister dandling a parishioner’s baby on his knee.
James and Ralph Clews, Cobridge, Staffordshire, England
Pearlware with transfer printed decoration
7”/10” diameter
Gift of Catherine Scott Hills, 6987
England
Pearlware with transfer printed decoration
2” x 5” diameter
Gift of the Mary Mattoon Chapter, NSDAR, 89.37.9A-B
Popular culture had inspired textile designs since the 1700s, when handkerchiefs illustrated popular songs, and this yardage continues the tradition. It traces the decline of a horse’s fortunes from racing thoroughbred to aged cart-horse in the popular opera “Liberty Hall.”
Although this looks like a copperplate print, using an older, more labor-intensive process, its shorter 20” repeat indicates it is an imitation produced by roller-printing.
England
Roller-printed cotton
22” x 26”
Gift of Mrs. John Elliott Jr., 91.166.1
Did Sarah Hewlett enjoy gardening as well as quilting and embroidery? Her exquisitely drawn and detailed flowers are accurately depicted calla lilies, morning glories, tiger lilies, pansies, water lilies, and fuchsias: all were popular in nineteenth century home gardens.
Sarah Varick Hewlett (1807-1867), Long Island, New York
Cotton
49” x 65”
Gift of Helen Jones, 87.43
Mid-century quilters embroidered roses in green wool to resemble the moss rose (rosa muscosa), whose buds and stems are covered in a moss-like substance which emit extra fragrance. Long familiar to botanists, its popularity in quilts appears to be the result of its becoming more widely available to American home gardeners about this time.
Made by a member of the Hayden family, Baltimore, Maryland
Cotton with wool embroidery
100” x 96”
Loan courtesy of Debby Cooney
Pierre-Joseph Redouté, Paris Les Roses,
1817-1824, no. 124
The prince’s (or princess) feather quilt design, one of few named patterns in the 1800s, imitates the drooping plumes of the Prince of Wales species of the amaranth plant. The three plumes in the English Prince of Wales’s emblem inspired the bloom’s name, but the quilt design is American. Another amaranth species, “love lies bleeding,” has varieties blooming in both red and green, like the fronds in this and many other princess feather quilts.
United States
Cotton
85” x 86”
Gift of Consuelo Carnes Atkins, 80.89.2
The graceful droop of the prince’s feather flower is stylized in the curve of the quilt design’s fronds. The use of green as well as red may have been suggested by the green varieties of the love-lies-bleeding species of amaranth.
Like many quilters, Anna Maria Hummel Markey Garnhart cut up several floral prints to create her own floral arrangements. Costlier multicolor chintzes are paired with more modest-priced, small-scale calico prints used in the baskets and leafy vines. Markey Garnhart made similar quilts for eleven grandchildren, using many of the same chintzes and calicoes. Compare the striped marigold at the very top with the botanical illustration nearby.
Anna Maria Hummel Markey Garnhart (1773-1860), Frederick, Maryland
Cotton
101” x 100”
Loan courtesy of the Maynard Family, L.91.355
Sydenham Teak Edwards, London
Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, Vol. 5, 1792
English chintz designers often copied flowers from Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, including this marigold seen in the appliqué quilt nearby. The United States’ textile industry was not advanced enough to produce these prints; they were imported from England and to a lesser extent, France. Many chintzes can be found on multiple surviving quilts.
Quilt makers created new, unique floral designs by combining multiple chintzes’ flowers into new arrangements. Here, four different chintzes have been carefully cut and reassembled. The chintzes can be distinguished by their backgrounds: cream, tan, brown, and striped.
United States
Cotton
38” x 54”
Gift of Jan Whitlock, 2007.18
Silk, watercolor, wood, gilt
9” x 17.5”
Gift of Elizabeth Rush Porter, 267.1
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Walnut with poplar secondary
51” x 23” deep
Friends of the Museum Purchase, 87.51
Made by Rachel Ruggles Warner or Mercy Warner, Connecticut or New York
Silk on linen
7.5” x 5.25”
Gift of Helen S. Cartledge, 1613.3
Beaded Purse, about 1835-1850
Glass, Silk
5” x 6”
DAR Museum, 87.66
Flowers were linked in popular culture to sentimental and spiritual thoughts. Here, a poem moves from literal flowers of spring to “a flower more sweet more fair,” identified at poem’s end as “love.”
Women often invited friends to contribute poems, quotes, drawings, and watercolors to their friendship albums. Friendship albums were the inspiration for album quilts whose blocks, inscribed by friends, are the fabric equivalent of a friendship book.
Assembled by Alletta Van Nest (1787-1875), Somerset County, New Jersey
Watercolor and ink on paper
7” x 8”
Gift of the Abigail Bartholomew Chapter, NSDAR, 97.20.2
Wedgwood, Staffordshire, England
Cream-colored earthenware with transfer printed decoration
9.25” x 5.875”
Gift of Hazel Longshore, in memory of Florence Kling Harding, 92.205.A-C
Botany was considered the best (or to some, the only) science for women to study. It was genteel and feminine (no killing or dissecting animals); required little specialized equipment; was “easy” for the feminine mind to grasp; and was allied to female pursuits like flower painting and arranging. Botany instruction books like this one were plentiful, for use in schools or by enthusiasts at home.
J.L. Comstock, Printed by Robinson, Pratt & Co., New York
Leather and paper
4.625” x 7.625”
Gift of Hazel K. Hoggett, 62.13
Bouquets appeared as often on paper as on textiles, although a hand-colored print like this could not offer the delicate, complex shading of a printed cotton.
Nathaniel Currier, New York
Hand-colored lithograph
10” x 14”
Friends of the Museum Purchase, 2003.40
The unusual birds here are unmistakably similar to those in the adjacent coverlet. Did Mary King copy a “fancy weave” coverlet made by a local weaver? There were coverlet weavers nearby, but we don’t know whether any of them used this design. Did a neighbor own such a coverlet brought from another area? Or did Mary and the coverlet weave designers both use a third source of the design?
Mary Swearingen King (1811-1902), Findlay, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Cotton
89” x 97”
Gift of Ama J. McElhaney Chambers in honor of Marie McElhaney and Edna Harper 2005.25
Printing shaded colors like this blue became possible in the 1820s, but became widespread by about 1840. Known then as “rainbow prints” and today as “ombré” or “fondu” (French for shaded and melted), they became enormously popular in both dress prints and quilts.
Probably printed in the United States
Cotton
10” x 17”
Gift of Zelina Comegys Brunschwig, in honor of her mother, Elise Comegys, 5662
Cylinder-printing revolutionized fabric and fashion. Passing fabric through a series of engraved metal cylinders, each printing one color, took a fraction of the time required by hand-printing, making it cheaper. Colorful, trendy cottons became affordable to the vast majority of Americans.
George Dodd
British Manufactures
The yellows here appear to be two of the many new dye colors developed at a rapid pace starting in the late 1700s. The solid is probably chrome orange, produced after 1840, while the ruffle’s design is earlier, suggesting its yellow may be quercitron, developed about 1790.
United States
Cotton
14” x 16”
Gift of Mary Vail Collier, 54.171
Weaver Abram Allen, an Irish immigrant, lived in several locations in central Ohio: nowhere near Verlinda Mary King. Several other weavers in Pennsylvania and Ohio also used this “Bird of Paradise” design. Coverlet designs could be mixed and matched by weavers in widely disparate areas, as they were commercially produced for use by local weavers.
Abram Allen (1796-after 1860), Ohio
Cotton and wool
81” x 89”
Gift of Mrs. Philip K. Russell, 96.93
Birds often accompany “Tree of Life designs,” but the bird of prey used here had personal resonance for this quilt maker. It was probably included as a nod to the quilt’s recipient, Edward Harris, an ornithologist and financial backer of John James Audubon. The Harris Hawk was one of two birds Audubon named after his friend.
Probably made by Mary Lang Harris (c.1797-1830) or Sarah Harris Spencer (c.1796-1826), Moorestown, New Jersey
Cotton
84.5” x 87”
Gift of Edward Harris Darrach, Jr., 96.69
“Tree of Life” designs originated in China, but it was Indian palampores imported into England—and to a lesser extent Colonial North America—which had enormous influence on American quilt designs well into the 1800s. Quilters cut and re-arranged branches, flowers, and often birds from one or several imported chintzes, creating their own exotic “Tree of Life” designs. Botanical accuracy was abandoned; both palampores and quilts display multiple flowers blooming from the same tree in joyful abundance.
India
Painted cotton
72.5” x 110”
Friends of the Museum Purchase, 2005.30
