Description:
Parial set of bed hangings made from navy blue worsted wool and decorated with an embossed pattern of dense flowers, plants, and abstract fruit. The set includes a curtain made from three selvage-wide panels, as well as side and end valances (see also 96.026.2 and .3). The set's design mimicks drawloom-woven patterns fashionable on patterned silks of the 1720s, including lampases (persiennes) and damasks. However, the pattern here is achieved through emobssing, a process that stamps or impresses a design onto fabric using heat and pressure. Specifically, the fabric was pressed to a heated brass or copper cylinder with the aid of wooden rollers. Imparting the design in this manner was faster and cheaper than weaving. When decorating a worsted wool, it was also less expensive than its woven silk counterpart. The wool, made shiny through the embossing process, may have also given the appearance of silk. The set descended in the family of Rev. Dr. Samuel Buell (1716-1798). Buell was born in Coventry, Connecticut, and moved to East Hampton, New York, on the eastern end of Long Island. In 1746, Rev. Buell married Jerusha Meacham (1721-1759), the daughter of the Rev. Joseph Meacham of Coventry, Connecticut, and Esther Williams (1691-1751) who was the daughter of the Rev. John Williams (1664-1729) of Deerfield, author of "The Redeemed Captive." Esther Williams was one of those captured in the Indian raid on Deerfield in 1704, taken to Quebec, and later redeemed. Rev. Buell married his second wife, Mary Mulford (1746-1783) of East Hampton, around 1767, and his third, Mary Miller (1766-1844), in 1788. According to Stephen West Williams (1790-1855) of Deerfield, this fabric comes from Buell's second marriage to Mary Mulford. However, it is also possible that Buell came into possession of the bed hangings from either his parents, or that of his first wife, Jerusha Meachem. The curtain's center panel has three loops sewn on top hem; the two end panels have an extra piece (linen wool?) sewn on to bottom of each. Each panel is about 68" x 20"; the repeat is 35.5" by 20.5." Selvage width is 20.75". See also HD 96.027-.028.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+96.026.1 |
