Description:
Wool bed rug with an all-over sewn and cut pile on a plain weave wool ground. This kind of bed covering was designed for both warmth and decoration in New England homes. It is surmised that the bed rug form, which appears by the early 18th century, was strongest in the area in and around the Connecticut River Valley. This example was made by Esther Packard (1733-1812) of Cummington, Massachusetts, when she was 68 years old. Packard's work is one of four similar bed rugs, of which two are connected to members of the Packard Family of Massachusetts. The other three examples include a rug marked “RP [Rachel Packard, a niece of Esther]/1805” in the collections of the Henry Ford Museum, a rug marked “PG 1805” in the collections of the Winterthur Museum, and another marked “BNP/1806” in the collections of the American Folk Art Museum. More work needs to be done to determine the makers of these last two examples. On the coarse, open and plain weave light blue wool ground is sewn a pile decoration in six-ply(?) wool whose seven colors include dark brown (possibly originally black) ground, and red/orange, blues, and white. At the top of this bed rug, the name and date "ESTHER PACKARD/1801" are included at the top, and created from the sewn pile. The design of the textile relates to the quilting patterns seen on contemporary whole cloth wool quilts, as well as whitework cotton quilts. These patterns were copied and adapted over time.
Label Text:
Pile-sewn rugs added warmth and decoration to beds in the 18th and early 19th centuries. This example, Historic Deerfield’s first documented example from the Connecticut River Valley, was made by Esther Packard (1733-1812) of Cummington, Massachusetts, when she was 68 years old. Packard's masterpiece is one of four similar bed rugs, two of which are connected to members of the Packard family of Massachusetts. The other three examples include a rug marked “RP 1805” in the collections of the Henry Ford Museum; one marked “PG 1805” in the collections of the Winterthur Museum; and a fourth marked “BNP/1806” in the collections of the American Folk Art Museum. With its scrolling floral and vine composition surrounding a central secondary one, all anchored by a vase-like shape at the bottom center, the design of Packard’s rug closely relates to quilting patterns seen on contemporary whole cloth wool quilts, as well as embroidery found on whitework cotton coverlets. The patterns on all these bed covering forms were borrowed, copied, and adapted for many years.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2017.6 |
