Panel #11: Long-Necked Birds

Panel #11

Pair of birds with wheat in an oval floral frame. 

Collection of the Smithsonian

Their caption tells us that it's probably English, "block printed in red, tan, dull yellow, and black on a white ground, with blue added by surface roller."

Their panel is framed with a pieced stripe in similar colors.

The birds in this panel are a bit awkward and the harsh shading on their necks does not add to their appeal. More pleasing is the drawing of the wheat above and the wreath of flowers that might be hardy hibiscus...

in a wreath similar to the one in Panel #3, the round trophy panel, another panel seen often in American quilts. We have photos of #11 in two different colorways, one with a white background and one with tan.

The tan seems to have been printed in a more limited range of colors, pinks, reds and blues.

Tan version from a Philadelphia quilt dated 1843-1847.

The corner images here might be added with Broderie Perse techniques. The panel looks to

have empty corners.

This quilt in the collection of  Philadelphia's Arch Street Quaker Meeting

includes a combination of typical Philadelphia pieced and chintz appliqued blocks.

http://www.newinsideworld.com/house-of-industry-quilt/

From a Kerry Taylor auction in London

We have only one example of a quilt located in Great Britain, which makes us think the bird fabric was primarily for export.

The brown ground can be hard to use.

The point of the Broderie-Perse technique

is to find a chintz and a background of the same shade.

Americans in Philadelphia and Charleston in the days when ships made frequent trips from one port to another shared many things, among them a fad for chintz album quilts. The Charleston Museum's wonderful collection includes at least four quilts with the bird panel.

Chintz bedcover from the Walker family

Charleston Museum. 

The fruit panel (#5) is the focus with four birds in the corners. Note a little of the wheat motif has been added to each vignette next to the palm trees.

In this one we get a nice view of the repeat in a basket panel, the

only example so far we have seen of this fruit basket in a floral wreath.

Mary Alma Parker donated this medallion found

in an attic on Ladson Street with the entire panel in the center. 

Attic storage would explain the heat-related deterioration.

Panel #3 in the center, long-necked birds in the corners 

Charleston Museum (HT-576), published in the Orlofsky's

Quilts in America.

.

The large ring is assembled from pieces of  panel #2.

See the last post.

UPDATE: Merikay found a better picture of the page.

In June, 1939 the Magazine Antiques published a photo of a classic Charleston-style bedcover attributed to Mrs. James Creswell. Owner Dr. Henry J. Berkley was a Maryland psychiatrist, an authority on antique furniture. The editor noted the bird panel in the center, a match to a quilt published two years earlier.

Magazine Antiques, October, 1937

This cover with cut out corners at the bottom and borders of piecework was attributed to the White family of Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, perhaps to Sarah Hamlin White (1787-1842) buried in Cooks Old Field Cemetery in Charleston County. Having seen so many Charleston bedcovers, we were struck by the different style here. Although we do have photos of other Charleston quilts with cut-out corners---the typical New England format---this one seems a bit out of Charleston's context? Patchwork border strips are unusual in Carolina quilts, more labor intensive and something seen more often north of the North Carolina/Virginia border.

Most Charleston quilts are related to the formula diagrams discussed in the last post---on-the-square format above and on-point below.

Bought at an auction in Georgia

This one with the brown bird panel was documented in the Quilts of Tennessee project. While many of these are so similar and so skillfully designed we suspect professional seamstresses and designers, The quilt above just doesn't have the panache of the Charleston examples. Note central panel #11 is rotated off center creating a rectangle.... Perhaps a copy of someone else's purchased bedcover?

Quilt attributed to Isabella Green Brewer, North Carolina

Found in Texas and pictured in the book Texas Quilts: Texas Treasures.

This one also looks to be from the hand of an amateur. The birds are at the top with a halved wreath cut from #11 on either side.

The circular frames are probably cut from other panels.

We've tried making chintz applique and it is not as easy as it looks.

Composition and placement can definitely get away from you.

On the subject of composition, the panel is found in at least three blocks in an extremely graceful Charleston album.

Quilt dated 1844-1845, Charleston Museum

Birds are cut from the panel in a block in the Banks-Eason album, made to celebrate a marriage in Charleston. The inked name is Henry Eason Dotterer, infant nephew of groom James Monroe Eason. The yellow in the birds is still bright in this photo.

The name of the groom himself is in the center, the wreath assembled from

Panel #11's frame.

Leftovers from the frame were used in Elizabeth Drummond's block. The bow is turned upside down. The remaining panel scraps, the top of the bow and the small palm trees, might have been used in other blocks.

Block closeups are from this digital book by family Virginia Eason Winn and Julie King Winn Sellers who donated the remarkable quilt to the Charleston Museum. Click to see The Eason-Banks Family Quilt :A Long Journey Home

https://ia800305.us.archive.org/2/items/1840sEasonBanksFamilyQuilt_201504/1840s%20Eason-Banks%20Family%20Quilt.pdf

What Have We Learned From Panel #11?

The more we look closely at these quilts the more we see a Charleston style---typical of a general Southern style of applique medallion. The Arch Street Meeting album at the top is a great example of medallion design that does not fit Charleston aesthetics. Charleston style includes a more economical use of fabric: large pieces of the florals, stripes and panels. Also economical in the sense of an economy of handwork and a good deal of white space. The chintzes, the placement and the composition make the bedcover.

Panel 11 with Panel #7 at top and Panel #13 on the bottom.

All of which makes us guess that this small top sold by a New England dealer in an online auction several years ago is probably not Southern. 

See  quilts at the Charleston Museum at these links:
The Banks/Eason Album
http://lcdl.library.cofc.edu/lcdl/catalog/lcdl:89298

The Ladson Street quilt:
http://lcdl.library.cofc.edu/lcdl/catalog/lcdl:89317

Medallion HT 576
http://lcdl.library.cofc.edu/lcdl/catalog/lcdl:89314

Panel #2: Round Bouquet in a Feather Scroll

Winterthur Museum Collection #1969.3247

Panel #2, a circular wreath of flowers topped with parrot tulips

framed by a scroll. 

Flowers on the left include this carnation, a "pink" with its pinked petals.

The scroll pictures feathers and roses.

Four different flowers in the corners

It seems to have been printed in three colorways. We see it most commonly with pinks, tans and blues on white. Several of our examples look to have faded. 

The Winterthur's panel shows an added yellow to make greens. 

Their panel is unused so the yellow may have tended to fade out with light or washing leaving blues.

The British quilt called the Fife coverlet features a panel in which the

background is more tan than white.

We have 25 American bedcovers with Panel #2---

those with a good history are primarily from the Carolinas.

Quilt attributed to an enslaved woman named Kadella at the Carson House

in Marion in western North Carolina, documented by the North Carolina project.

Yardage of Panel #2 has been cut in half to make the final border....

giving us an idea of the repeat with a narrow strip of white between panels.

One would have to trim that panel closely to make the most of the pattern.

Merikay's collection includes a chintz quilt inscribed 1833 E.H.R.

Panel 2 is framed by four of panel #7 and the final border is the fruit stripe,

a companion to panel #5.

Charleston Museum Collection #HT 584

Quilted in diamonds in an overall pattern, about 105" square

Nothing is listed about the maker or previous owners.

This simple yet elegant quilt follows a consistent structure we see with panel #2. The large floral is trimmed of its corners and positioned in the center (on point or on the square). Those corner scraps are spaced out to fill up the central square and often framed with a strip of chintz. You might call this a Broderie Perse or chintz applique quilt, but really there is very little applique in it, just some judicious cutting of gorgeous fabrics. As Laurel Horton wrote in Social Fabric: South Carolina's Traditional Quilts, this quilt "demonstrates the further reduction of the style to its basic visual components. The framed center quilt still resembles it chintz antecedents, but it contains no applique work at all....[achieving] similar visual effects by taking advantage of manufactured panels and borders... a process of simplification and adaptation."

The quilt below follows the formula with more applique in the outside border.

This one is constructed very much like Merikay's with the central square on point, the corners moved out and Panel #7 inside a chintz strip.

It's from an Ebay auction.

It's always fun to see how the designer cut up her square and re-arranged the parts.

In this top she turned the corners and wreath around---

The same ideas seen in the center of the quilt below.

Ann Adeline Orr Parks left several chintz quilts to her family.

In this one panel #2 is trimmed of its scrolly frame and corners,

which fill the space in a large central square on point.

Twelve bouquets from smaller Panel #13, its frames and corners fill the background.

See a post about the Parks quilts here:

https://womensworkquilts.blogspot.com/2018/12/ann-adeline-orr-parks-family-in-fabric.html

A second medallion featuring panel #2 attributed to Ann Orr Parks.

This is quite a successful composition with panel corners integrated

into the scrolly frame and additional chintz applique outside a narrow

floral stripe.

In this medallion, once in the McCarl's collection, the central

panel and its trimmed corners are framed by panel #15. Chintz strips dominate.

The quilting pattern looks to be an all over design of

scallops.

Here's a detail of  one from the collection of Lorie Stubbs.

Scallop quilting and triple diagonal-line quilting are apparent in the photo.

Smithsonian NMAH Collection T.12902

Not much is known about this one, similar to Lorie's in use of the panel and in the grid quilting. The woman from Sapphire, Transylvania County, North Carolina,who donated it many decades ago found it in a sale in the 1930s. It's small, about 76" but the curators report a final border appears to have been trimmed off.

See the quilting here:

http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?view=&dsort=&date.slider=&q=quilt&gfq=CSILP_1

Quilt attributed to Mary Withers Read (1790 - 1817)

Charleston Museum

This beauty strays from the formula a bit with Panel #3 (The Trophy of Arms) as the central panel and two copies of Panel #2 cut in half diagonally to fill out the center, making for a denser design.

Very much like one in the Smithsonian attributed to the family of

Mary Brewton Motte Alston of the Fairfield-on-the-Waccamaw plantation

 near Georgetown County, South Carolina.

https://www.si.edu/object/nmah_556379

The Alston quilt was a little more labor intensive than some of these with

birds, branches, butterflies and flowers appliqued to one of the strips.

The other borders are plain cuts from chintzes.

International Quilt Study Center & Museum #2007.040.0001

Some variation to the formula with four strips of chintz as frames but one of them is cut from yardage of smaller panels #32 & 35.

The cut-out chintz applique in the center features birds and butterflies with the popular pheasant and palm tree print.

Margaret Salena Perkins Laxton's quilt below looks anything but formulaic with its flamboyant palm trees and birds rotating around panel #2. The panel is trimmed of its frame and corners, which are spaced towards the edges. However, the major structure with borders of chintz strips does follow the pattern we see with this panel.

Attributed to Margaret Salena Perkins Laxton (1808-1883)

Perkinsville, Burke County, North Carolina, 

Collection of the Museum of Southern Decorative Arts.

 MESDA has two quilts attributed to her.

http://mesda.org/item/collections/quilt/618/

Quilting is a variety of utility patterns in straight lines and grids.

And if it's brightened up we can see the appliqued vignettes

as cut from another popular bird design,

a peacock on a pedestal with a peahen. 

The male bird and tree is seen here in Mary Firth's tree of life quilt at the 

Philadelphia Museum of Art:

http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/59060.html

Another quilt featuring the peacock, this one from the 

Mississippi project, pictured in their book Mississippi Quilts, 

which attributes it to Liza Owens of Grenada County, Mississippi in 1857.

The peacock was probably printed in several variations by different printers.

We couldn't identify the female figure with extended hand.

The Owens quilt is "quilted all over in custom designs, including feathered cables." The family story recalled "the central medallion, or 'quilt square.' as they called it, was sent over from England." This quilt has little of the grace and skillful applique of others in this post but family history indicates it won many ribbons at local fairs.

Charleston Museum Collection # HT742

Trimmed panel for a central focus with 4 pieces of panel #7 in the wide

border of various cut-out chintz motifs, florals, birds and butterflies.

Attributed to Catherine May Crist,

Collection Atlanta History Center

Similar quilt with one copy of Panel #2 and a dozen of Panel #7. Brought from Timberland in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley to Montgomery, Alabama by a great-grandson. See more about #7 here.

https://chintzpanelquilt.blogspot.com/2018/06/gothic-ruin-panel-7.html

Collection of Glorian Sipman

Trimmed central panel with similar small motifs among trimmed versions of panels #9, 12 & 13 in one of a group from the estate of Jennie Clarkson Dreher Hazlehurst (1916-2006) of Columbia, South Carolina, sold at Charlton Hall Auction in that city. Probably connected to Charleston's extended Eason/Banks/Dodderer families. Hugh Rose Banks was a drygoods retailer in Charleston before the Civil War.

Collection of Rowan Museum, Rowan County, North Carolina

 Attributed to Jane Locke Young Graham, Rowan County

from the book Arts in Earnest: North Carolina Folklife.

Smaller panel is #13.

Merikay spotted this one years ago on eBay with a central

 trimmed panel and a border of chintz.

The seller noted the prominent initials OGR and a date 1869 (a little late we'd guess and perhaps added later). She knew it came from the Reddick family of Reddick, Florida near Ocala. We'd guess the Reddicks were from the Carolinas and sure enough found that Sarah Mills Reddick (1815-1892) of Beech Island, Edgefield on the South Carolina/Georgia line came to Florida in the mid-1850s with husband Ulrick and children. They were married August 11, 1833 and it is more likely the quilt dates to that event with initials of son O.??? added in later too. Or could those initials be UGR for Ulrick Reddick who died in 1869?

Panel extravaganza offered at Skinners' Auctions

five years ago. Around the central panel #2 are panels 6, 7, 12 and 13.

Somebody had some chintz!

Again the corners have been cut and spaced out to fit

inside a strip frame, but every scrap in the cabbage basket 

seems to have been included.

The cabbage basket on the floor contained the leftover fabrics

as seen in this 1760 painting by Raspal of a French sewing workshop.

International Quilt Study Center & Museum #2008.040.0032

Dated June 14, 1852, Sumter District, South Carolina

This block format is smaller than many of the medallions, about 83" square. Was it finished?

https://www.quiltstudy.org/quilt/20080400032

Signed four times below the vases from a popular print---not a panel.

Corners and frame rearranged.

Art Institute of Chicago, a gift in 1965:

More block style design.

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/23516/bedcover-floral-medallion-quilt?q=quilt&page=4

Collection of Spartanburg (SC) Price House

Using the panel as a bouquet in a woven basket.

Very similar thinking below, but this one is a partially appliqued center

with basting for the unfinished parts.

Historic Columbia (SC) Foundation

About 54" square

The baskets are nearly identical---same hand?

The panel seems S-o-o-o Carolinas, but we also have a British example:

ONE British example.

Fife Coverlet, Collection of the Quilters' Guild in Britain

Panel 2 in center.

http://www.quiltmuseum.org.uk/collections/heritage/fife-coverlet.html

Makower did a reproduction with a tan ground.

We made a reproduction from the Makower panel with several friends.

What Have We Learned From Panel #2?

Barbara has to admit she's put off posting about Panel #2 because the quilts, "All look the same." But now that we've sorted them out and looked at them closely, it's great that they all look the same. These Carolina medallions tell us a lot. They follow a structural formula, a pattern. In one basic design the panel is on point, the corners are pulled out to enlarge the central area, framed by a series of unpieced strip borders. In the other basic design the central square is on point.

Many of these medallions required little time to stitch; they make the most of beautiful fabrics by focused cutting and graceful compositions. The more we look at these the more we see a professional hand. 

The pair of quilts below with their family attributions enabled us to look into the relationships between the families who donated them to the museums. How is it that they look so much alike?  Barbara wrote on her Quilt 1812 blog several years ago:

"The similarity of these quilts may be explained by the families being relatives and neighbors in their winter residence on their plantations near Georgetown [South Carolina] and their city residences in Charleston."

But we have changed our minds. The women associated with these quilts were not the makers; they were the owners. The bedcovers were purchased or commissioned, probably in Charleston. Could you buy basted block centers?

See other posts:
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2018/10/stripes-for-bordering-quilts-poppies.html

More about the Alstons
http://quilt1812warandpiecing.blogspot.com/2012/04/8-theodosia-burr-alston-carolina-coast.html