Description:
Appliqued and pieced cotton quilt done with a repeating red and green floral wreath pattern on a white ground; matching green binding on four sides; and the quilting done in a diamond or trellis pattern. The use of red and green enjoyed great popularity between the 1830s and 1890. The state of dye technology at this time helped make the physical survival of red and green quilts possible. "Turkey" red, initially a dye process using the roots of the madder plant, was perfected in the Ottoman empire of the eastern Mediterranean area. By the mid 18th century, English and French textile printers used this multi-step technique to produce a fast color. While it tended to fade to a strawberry pink, it did not bleed onto other fabrics in a pieced design. Greens used in pre-Civil War quilts often were produced in a two-step process (over-dyeing blue and yellow) using both mineral and vegetable sources., which tended to fade to blue or tan.
Subjects:
Textile fabrics; Cotton Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+F.022 |
