Tuesday, May 1, 2018

George III Jubilee: Panel 24




"G*50*R"
Panel 24, Celebrating King George III's 50th Anniversary in 1809-1810.
Golden Jubilee. 
A Jubilee is a 50th anniversary.

Merikay has tried to find a photo of an uncut design for each of the panels.
This one belongs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.


Jubilee
G [eorge] R[ex]
[King George]



This quilted patchwork bedcover featuring an oval panel was on the dustcover of Averil Colby's 1958 book Patchwork. The photo focused on the patchwork center which is framed by a large piece of  print. Below the overall view:


Quilted patchwork bed cover of printed cottons, English, 

After 1810. 84" x 99". T.25-1961.

Collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum. 
Gift of Elisabeth Clarke of Woodbridge, Suffolk in 1961.

Cataloging information describes the panel's florals symbolizing the United Kingdom : 
"A ready-printed basket of flowers including lilies, carnations and daffodil buds. The basket is flanked by the rose and thistle, and a cluster of shamrocks appears beneath."
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O165077/bed-cover-unknown/

The Jubilee panel, printed by woodblock, is believed to be the earliest "datable commemorative panel." We assume it was printed for the 1809-1810 event.

Jubilee medal from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum

"Completed 50th Year of His Reign
Oct 25, 1810"

A black and white photo from Percival MacIver's 1923
The Chintz Book, Page 150.
He describes it:
"printed in vivid colouring with a preponderance of bright canary yellow, then a new and most fashionable shade. There was a great liking for small panels of printed cotton and silk which were intended to be applied to different articles of plain material and surrounded often with embroidery."
He also dates it as 1812 which is not the date of the Jubilee. The celebration lasted through 1809 and 1810 so the panel could be from either year.
Read a digital copy of MacIver's book here: https://archive.org/details/chintzbook00perc

Shamrocks for Ireland above the inscription


This second patchwork piece in our files is one of those orphan internet photos. It shows the panel with a leafy background, which differs from the V & A's quilt with a spotted figure. The colorway is also different with more blue and less color variety. Or perhaps the color photo is faded.

102" x 102"



Dorothy Osler in Traditional British Quilts (1987) showed a third bedcover from a private collection. In this quilted piece from the North Country the uncut panel is placed on the diagonal and has florals appliqued in its corners on the plain white ground.

T181-1941, Victoria & Albert Museum
91" x 100"

The V&A has another bedcover pictured in Colleen R. Callahan's "A Quilt and Its Pieces" in the Metropolitan Museum Journal in 1984.

Again the background is plain white with appliqued pieces.

All four of the quilts in the database are in England. Jubilee panels featuring the vilified King would not have been popular with recently independent Americans and the fabric was unlikely to have been exported to Boston or Charleston.

Were all the panels originally framed in white? Did the quiltmakers neatly applique the ovals onto different fabrics? Or are we looking at at least three printings?

Measuring the V&A's 84" wide quilt by proportion
we come up with a size of about 23" wide by 21" tall.

Merikay was surprised at the panel's actual size. The quilts are rather large but after having seen them only in photos "In my mind I thought they were much smaller quilts."


UPDATE: A late addition to the database. Panel 24 in a quilt pictured in Architectural Digest in 1986. From the inventory of the Antique Textile Company in England.



104" long by 90" wide.


What Can We Learn From This Panel?
Commemorative dating of this early multi-colored chintz panel indicates that panels were printed no earlier than the early 19th century. We haven't yet seen one that we can reliably date to the 18th century.

See more about the V&A's quilt and what x-radiography revealed about construction.


1 comment:

  1. I am so excited about this blog! Chintz panels are a favorite with me!

    ReplyDelete