Description:
Cotton whitework quilt (or called quilt "in imitation of marseille" in the early 19th century) with a center medallion with leaves and embroidered with stuffed grapes raised in ball shapes in a wreath surrounded by borders, which has a faint ink inscription on the back with two initials and a last name, which may be "? A. BIF...? Detroit." The three layers have been hand-quilted with stuffed work, and double and single parallel lines (9 stiches per inch), and hand-corded; the border has been double quilted and has a knife-edge binding; and the white cotton backing is made up of three strips of cotton. 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. The contemporary 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. This quilt was purchased by the donor from a dealer in Whately, Massachusetts, a town just south of Deerfield.
Subjects:
Textile fabrics; Cotton Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+90.176 |
