Description:
Cotton whitework quilt (or called quilt "in imitation of marseille" in the early 19th century) with a center plaque-like medallion with "PER / 1852" stitched in a center oval surrounded by large-scale floral and frond border, and an outer border of a six-"fingered" feathered pattern; white, plain weave cotton backing; and cotton batting. The quilt descended in the donors' New England family, but they did not know who made it, possibly one of their great-grandmothers (see data file). Both loom-quilted and and hand-quilted versions of what is now referred to as whitework (white quilts with white embroidery or surface design) were widely available in American during the 18th and 19th centuries. Current scholarship suggests that the contemporary use of the the term 'marseille' referred only to quilting done on the loom, while hand-made examples were referred to as a 'white quilt' or 'white quilted counterpane.' The whitework quilts evolved out of the intricately quilted, stuffed, and embroidered bed quilts, petticoats, and waistcoats produced in France, India, and England in the 17th and 18th century. Called "marseille" after the port through which the French quilting was exported, this work was replicated by the drawloom in a technique patented in 1745. Improvements throughout the 1760s to this quilting accomplished "in the loom" led to the general availabliliy of the fabric, sold as yardage or made up into garments, by the 1770s. The designs of Marselle quilts produced in the loom were based on the traditional handmade marselle bedcovers made in the 17th and early 18th centuries. The neoclassical whitework quilts inspired by the machine-woven examples also display the framed center medallion designs, often with realistic and elegant floral motifs. Both stuffed and embroidered versions of all-white bedcovers were popular during the first third of the 19th century. Stuffed whitework quilts, such as this example, were often made to be included in a bride's wedding outfit, and were particularly prized because of the amount of labor that went into them. Although more difficult to keep clean, white domestic textiles, especially those made from cotton, could be easily laundered.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+90.100 |
