Quilt 1812: War & Piecing

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Conventional Applique in Calicoes

Center of the Ann Daggs or Ann Dagge quilt

Ann Dagge's 1818 quilt, attributed to Rochester, New York, in the collection of the Smithsonian, looks like a singular piece of folk art but it shares several characteristics with other quilts from the teens. All these quilts found in the U.S. rely on the latest multi-color calicoes rather than large-scale furnishing chintzes. For the next few weeks we shall consider this style.

http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=36860

Like Louisa Brigham's quilt below Dagge's quilt has a swag border with triple leaves.

Louisa Brigham 1818

Found by the Connecticut Quilt project.

The triple leaf motif is seen throughout the Brigham quilt

Louisa also included a pair of reptiles (alligators?) appliqued from calico. A family member brought this quilt to a quilt day. According to the wife of Louisa's descendant she was born April 9, 1793 in Barre, Vermont.

Here's a detail of Ann Dagge's quilt (bad color) showing her calico birds. Also note her flat cookie-shaped roses and three-lobed tulips, something we see a lot more of in later applique quilts.

Ann Robinson's 1813-14 quilt in the Shelburne Museum collection is similar---using flat flowers and tulips with many flowers composed of hexagons

Robinson also included calico animals and birds and many triple-leaf designs.

With several cornucopia.

Quilt inscribed Maria Whelpton,

aged 19, Feb. 27 1828.

Here's a similar calico quilt, a little more orderly and ten years later.

Maria used small-scale calicoes and a lot of oval leaf shapes.

My photos are fuzzy because I copied a photo in the 1991 Quilt Engagement Calendar.

The page has been hanging in and hanging around in my studio or twenty years. Those calico leaves in a white square are so much like Ann Robinson's.

Sources for all of these designs are not too hard to find.

Embroidered Pocket

Triple leaf motifs are common in embroidery

Embroidered blanket

with a similar swag border

Triple leaves along the top border.

Embroidered sampler by Anna Braddock 1826

Braddock's sampler includes a cornucopia, tulips, birds and animals and, like Ann Robinson's quilt, a rather chaotic composition more familiar in samplers than in appliqued quilts.

These early conventional applique quilts, all found in the U.S., share so much---a certain early style, which then seems to disappear in the U.S. replaced by block-style design with more restrictions

1861 applique quilt by Esther Griffin

Griffin used similar design units but sashing confined her compositions forty-five years later.

The block below with the floating perspective common in samplers is unusual in a mid-century quilt.

Detail of a quilt signed M.S.from the Byron and Sara Rhodes Dillow Collection at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum. Estimated date about 1850.

See the whole quilt here (#2008.040.0114)

http://cdn.firespring.com/images/512277e0-ff89-44fe-94dc-5364f177493c.jpg

Did early-19th-century American applique artists develop a short-lived, rather unconfined style that was forgotten when block-style applique became the dominant style in the 1840s. Were these calico quilts from the teens derived from a particular school or teacher?

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Madame Grelaud's Female Seminary

A Phildelphia Eagle Sampler by

Matilda Filbert

1830

Madame Grelaud had the honor of owning the most fashionable girl's school in Philadelphia from about 1800 into the 1850s.

In 1810 Mme. Grelaud's Seminary

was on the north side of Arch Street above 3rd,

with the Second Presbyterian church on the corner.

Like many of the foreign women who relied upon a school for income, Mme. Deborah Grelaud's past was a bit mysterious. She was French, probably a refugee from the colony of Sante Domingue, modern Haiti, one of the white aristocrats who fled during the revolution there in 1790s. Her husband's end is also mysterious. He may have been killed in that slave rebellion or died after escaping to the United States.

Madame Grelaud advertised an

embroidery curriculum in this ad from the

Pennsylvania Gazette in the fall of 1801.

The widowed Deborah with three boys and a girl to support started her successful school, known for its French curriculum, lessons in art and music and public musicales that entertained Philadelphia society in the evenings. During the War of 1812 the three Grelaud sons, Titon, John and Arthur sailed with naval officer Stephen Girard from Valparaiso to Canton. Her daughter Aurora taught with her. Both women lived into their late eighties, so the school had a long infuence.

Mme Grelaud's Female Seminary was expensive and exclusive. Among Amelia Russell's classmates in the teens were daughters of many of the society women we've discussed over the past year. Martha Washington's granddaughter Eliza Law was sent there after her parent's separation. Martha Custis Peter's daughters Columbia and America were among the many Southern girls who boarded as were Nelly Custis Lewis's girls Parke and Agnes. Rosalie Calvert's daughters Caroline and Eugenia went when the Calverts had the cash to spare. Diplomat's daughters like Amelia Russell and Maria Hester Monroe boarded and Philadelphia's upper class girls attended the day school.

Later students included Varina Howell Davis and Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut.

Betty Ring, the authority on embroidered samplers, identified various sampler styles, using details such as eagles in Philadelphia samplers to link samplers visually to schools and teachers in England and the United States. She found none attributable to Madame Grelaud's. Ring's collection was sold at a Sotheby's auction earlier this year.

Another Philadelphia Eagle sampler, this one from the Sotheby's sale.
The eagle samplers date from 1820-1840.

See the catalog of Betty Ring's sampler collection here:
http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/important-american-schoolgirl-embroideries-the-landmark-collection-of-betty-ring-n08832/lots.list.1.html

And read Ring's research here:
http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2012/important-american-schoolgirl-embroideries-the-landmark-collection-of-betty-ring-n08832/overview.html
Click on the three files of her work American Embroidery and 2 volumes of Girlhood Embroidery, a great online resource.

Margaret Moss sampler 1825

Collection of the Cooper-Hewitt

Once you read Ring's work it becomes quite obvious that sampler patterns were passed on by professional teachers to their students.We can use a parallel logic to connect quilts from the early 19th century and wonder where these two quiltmakers got the pattern for their swag borders.

Ann Daggs, Dagg or Dagge

Dated 1818

Collection of the Smithsonian Institution

Louisa Brigham

Dated 1817

Connecticut Quilt Project

These two medallion quilts dated right after the War of 1812 have a lot more in common than their swag borders with triple leaf details. Both are unusual for the time in their reliance on conventional applique of small-scale calico prints rather than on Broderie Perse or cut-out chintz applique.

Maria Monroe stitched a sampler in 1814. You can buy a kit for the copy above here:
http://www.posycollection.com/AshLawn/ASHLAWNMariaMonroeSampler5.html

Monday, October 1, 2012

Amelia Eloise Russell: Peace

Applique Quilt, 1813-1814

Ann Robinson

Collection of the Shelburne Museum

Philadelphia. Sunday, February 15, 1815. "As it had snowed in the night, uncle thought it would be too bad walking to go to church. I therefore stayed at home and read...About one o'clock we heard some one endeavoring to lift the latch. In great haste we sent a servant to the door, who returned and told us there was a little boy there who said there was Peace. We all ran to the door, and found Mrs. Lisle there, whose little boy it was. She told us an express [ship?] had arrived from New York which said a British ship of war had arrived bringing a treaty of peace.... Everybody in the street was smiling, and Mr. John Kane came up and shook my hand, saying, 'God bless your father!' "

Sampler from Philadelphia

1817

Amelia, a 17-year-old student, was the daughter of Jonathan Russell, an American diplomat who had the misfortune to be Ambassador to England during the diplomatic impasse that led to the War of 1812. President Madison sent him to represent the U.S. in Norway and Sweden for the rest of the war. A widower, he left his daughter with her uncle while she attended the elegant Philadelphia school of Madame Deborah Grelaud.

Amelia had been born in France when her father was on a mission there. She spent a good deal of her youth in schools and took her middle name Eloise from a favorite teacher in a Massachusetts school.

The Hundred Years' Peace by

Amedee Foriestier

Jonathan Russell is one of the Americans

behind John Quincy Adams on the right side

of this painting celebrating the centennial of the Christmas Eve treaty.

In 1814 after two years mired in an unpopular war, Madison sent Jonathan Russell and other commissioners to Europe to negotiate a truce with Britain in August, 1814. The commissioners signed a treaty in Ghent in Belgium on Christmas Eve but, as we have seen, news of peace did not reach America's largest city until nearly two months later.

General Andrew Jackson won

America's largest land victory in the War

in January, 1815.

During the gap between treaty and celebration Andrew Jackson won the Battle of New Orleans and British troops captured Fort Bowyer on Mobile Bay.

Amelia recorded Philadelphia's peace festivities. An illumination was an important part of every civic event---street-facing windows in every house were lit. Deborah stayed home from school on the Wednesday after the peace news, perhaps painting transparencies on paper or fabric through which the lights would shine.

"Uncle wanted me to fix some things for illuminations. We lighted our candles a little after six.... I walked with [friends]. The illumination was very brilliant, and there were a great many transparencies."

Political parade in 1860 featuring banners,

torches and lighted windows,

carrying on the old tradition of illuminations.

Illuminations often caused riots, as patriotic mobs felt at liberty to damage houses without window lights. Philadelphia's Quakers were among those terrorized but during this peace illumination the Mayor directed the police to protect "their peaceful rights" to refuse to celebrate on religious principles.

Madame Grelaud had promised the students that she would throw a ball when peace came. The City sponsored a second ball in March.

March 21st. "At last the important day arrived, and I was in a great hurry to get my dress ready, and I could scarcely think of anything else all day, such is the disadvantage of balls. ...The street, from Eighth to Ninth, was crowded with people, and I was really afraid the carriage would run over some one, but fortunately they had wit enough to keep out of the way. I do believe there would hardly have been more people assembled to see Buonaparte than there was to see a parcel of carriages."

The hall was decorated with hothouse plants, floral wreaths and festoons and on the stage a panorama of the Philadelphia harbor. "The musicians immediately struck up 'Hail Columbia.' It was more like a fairy scene than anything I can imagine."

The Treaty of Ghent brought an end to

wars between the U.S. and Great Britain, although the two countries

came close to wars again in the 19th century.

In October we will consider boarding schools, peace and their effects upon quilts, as well as this style of early conventional applique, rather fanciful, crowded and unrestrained by blocks.

Louisa Brigham quilt

Dated 1818

From the Connecticut Quilt Project

See a detail here at the Quilt Index:

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=47-7B-C51

The Russell home in Mendon, Massachusetts

Amelia E. Russell's letters are published in 1900 in the introduction to her book Home Life of the Brook Farm Association.

http://books.google.com/books?id=lukWAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Philadelphia Merchant and Quaker Quilts

Center of a wholecloth silk quilt made by Philadelphia Quakers

Hannah Callender, Sarah Smith and Catherine Smith,

Dated 1761

Collection of Independence Hall

Silk wholecloth quilts were a Quaker tradition.

Quaker Thomas P. Cope kept a dry goods store in Philadelphia in Pewter Platter Alley after the Revolution. In his diary he recorded the ups and downs of retail business through wars, embargoes, aggravating partnerships and ship wrecks.

Thomas P. Cope (1768-1854) in later life

from the collection of the

Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Like many Philadelphians he was a Quaker.

Cope made far more money from the shipping business than from selling fabric and china in his store. He became an importer, a speculator in dry goods, and built a ship to sail between Philadelphia and ports in China, India and Europe.

Detail of a pieced silk quilt by

Quaker Rachel Goodwin Woodnutt,

Salem, New Jersey, late 1820s.

Collection of the Winterthur Museum.

Quaker dress relied upon plain colored silks, a commodity that Cope and other Quaker merchants imported for their customers.

Note the complex interlocked cable in the quilting, a pattern that became quite popular with later Pennsylvania quilters. See the whole quilt here:
http://content.winterthur.org:2011/cdm/singleitem/collection/quilts/id/351/rec/1

A month after the War of 1812 began Cope was lucky enough to have a ship's cargo released by the customs inspector. The Lancaster was carrying tea, silk and India goods from the port of Canton. "We sold the Cargo this day at public auction at a very large profit....Calicoes that cost from 5 to 7 1/2 went for 45 to 56 cts. per yard."

When I visited the Winterthur Museum for their exhibit Quilts in a Material World a few years ago I photographed another early silk Quaker quilt with similar quilting pattern.

In October, 1813 Cope assessed the effects of the war on trade.

"The pressure of the war has been as yet but little felt by people in general. Those who had foreign goods on hand have mostly sold them at great profit, while the domestic manufacturers obtain large profits on what they make."

An advertisement from 1811 in a Philadelphia newspaper listing locally made fabrics. The Alms House was one of the public institutions where inmates manufactured fabrics. Note the "Fleece Cotton, for quilts, &c.," probably cotton batting.

The "Thomas P. Cope" by Edward Moran.

The artist and his artist brother Thomas Moran came to Philadelphia on this ship in the Cope Packet Line. This detail shows the ship on its way to Cope's wharf.

After the War of 1812 Cope's Line of Packets regularly sailed to Liverpool with passengers and freight. Once trade opened up again profits flowed and Cope began quite wealthy.

A few months after the war was over the Albany Argus advertised "Fresh Goods at Peace Prices". W.H. & J. Hoyt announced a post-war shipment of "seasonable goods, which they offer at a small advance from judicious purchases." Do note that New Yorkers were still selling slaves in 1815. In the lower right hand corner "For Sale, a negro boy, about 15."

Thomas Cope's diary was discovered in the 1930s and published in 1978.
Philadelphia Merchant: The Diary of Thomas P. Cope, 1800- 1851, edited by Eliza Cope Harrison (South Bend, IN: Gateway Editions, 1978)

See a wool wholecloth Quaker quilt dated 1813, possibly made in Burlington, New Jersey in the collection of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum (# 2002.012.0001)
http://cdn.firespring.com/images/f4c4c237-ccae-4148-9422-ccbcfc388de8.jpg

Read Linda and Mary's blog on Quaker Quilt History here:
http://www.quakerquilthistory.com/

Another wholecloth quilt from the Winterthur collection.

See the catalog of the exhibit here:

http://books.google.com/books/about/Quilts_in_a_Material_World.html?id=PSpmQgAACAAJ

Friday, September 21, 2012

Eagles Appliqued and Embroidered

Quilt dated 1808 by Rebecah Foster (detail)

Appliqued and stuffed-work eagle.

Collection Tennessee State Museum

Eagles are among the earliest conventional applique in which the images are cut from small prints rather than transferred from a printed chintz. Eagles were popular even before the War of 1812.

An overall view of the Foster quilt. She combined embroidery and conventional applique using indigo prints. The image is the Great Seal of the United States, featuring a bald eagle holding laurel leaves and arrows with a shield on his breast and a banner in his beak. The seal, adopted in 1782, inspired many artists.

Quilt dated 1807 by Esther S. Bradford, Connecticut,

appliqued eagle. Collection: Henry Ford Museum

A similar quilt in red and white. It's hard to believe this is appliqued, as the lines are so fine, but that's what the catalog says.

See more here:

http://www.thehenryford.org/exhibits/quiltinggenius/quilts/59_41_2.asp

Here's a sharper picture in black and white. The maker is perhaps the Esther Bradford born on December 2, 1782 in Montville, New London County, Connecticut, who married Reynolds Johnson on August 25, 1821 and died on December 1, 1823 in Colchester, Connecticut.

Patchwork can be considered an efficient form of embroidery. These quilts seem to be appliqued adaptations of traditional embroidery designs. The embroidered bedcover below in red and white is almost identical to the Bradford quilt

Embroidered bedcover

Brooklyn Museum

This piece was on the cover of Rose Wilder Lane's

Woman's Day Book of American Needlework

And here it is again in colored yarns in an embroidered bedcover sold by Copake Auctions.

We assume a needlework pattern was passed around or perhaps a professional pattern drafter marked fabric.

The quilts above make good use of two fabrics---a white background and indigo or madder prints. The fabrics might be domestically produced, since these simple prints were the kind of thing American printers could do.