- Wholecloth Quilt
Face fabric: 34 in. (86.3 cm)
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Technical notes and description: Tabby-weave cotton face and back; cotton fringe and filling. This rectangular quilt boasts a central oval medallion divided into bracket-outlined, blossom-filled quadrants. It is framed in turn by eight stars with a laurel leaf oval. The remainder of the ground is filled with an outer garland border of fruits—grapes, cherries, pineapples—and flowers that are embellished with French knots. The filled outline pattern is worked in running stitch, and a hand-knotted fringe borders three sides.
Related examples: Voorhees family quilt, Long Island, New York, 1830–31, in the Newark Museum, New Jersey (acc. no. 49.50).
Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.
ProvenanceBy descent through the Hall, Andrus, and Gibbs families; Mrs. Dan H. Carpenter, Houston; given to Miss Ima Hogg, 1969; given to MFAH, 1976.
Exhibition HistoryNote pinned to quilt: "Rebecca Hall, daughter of Diekerman Hall, and wife of Jared Hall, and mother of Caroline Hall Andrus(?) who was the mother of Sara Montague Gibbs - who was mother of Caroline Foster Gibbs Andrus."
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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