Quilt, Pieced Printed Cottons

Date1820-1840

MediumCottons

Dimensions98 inches high X 94 1/2 inches wide

Credit LineGift of the Valentine Museum, Richmond, VA

Object number2024-371

DescriptionRectangular quilt in blues and sepia tones on natural, pieced from 4 different patterns of small-scale printed cottons in abstracted geometric designs similar to flowers, delicate scrolling vines with gourd-like elements, and daisy-like flower heads arranged as polka dots. The quilt consists of 25 squares, each pieced in four triangles, two of sepia and two with blue grounds. Where the squares join, they create an effect of large windmill blades. There is a wide border of blue printed cotton on all four sides with a sepia printed square in each corner. The bed cover is quilted through thin cotton batting using running stitches worked 6 to 8 per inch using blue thread for the blue areas and off-white thread for the sepia-tone areas. The quilting design consists of grids and parallel lines following the pieced triangles. Coarse off-white cotton backing is brought to the front and stitched to form a narrow edge finish. Later blue-ground polka dot fabric is added in areas as later repairs, possibly nineteenth century in date.
Twentieth or twenty-first century hanging strip stitched to the quilt back.Label TextAlthough pieced in a relatively simple design of four triangles per block, the arrangement of colors in this quilt gives the eyecatching effect of large-scale windmill blades. The small printed textiles are typical of designs in the 1820s and 1830s.Mark(s)None foundProvenanceDates unknown, provenance unknown; ca. 1970, Elizabeth Talbott Gwathmey (Mrs. Robert Miller) Jefress [1900-1981] (Richmond, VA); 1970, given to Valentine Museum (Richmond, VA); 2024, given to Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, VA).