Dating Panel Medallion Quilts

Quilt dated March 12, 1839, attributed to 

Margaret Elizabeth Black 

Museum at Texas Tech

The quilt above is the latest panel medallion in our files. One can see the new fashion for block-style albums influencing the look. After 1840 block styles predominated.

In the files we have 15 date-inscribed American quilts with panels ranging from 1818 to 1854.

The style change is obvious after 1840 when the central-focused medallions fade from fashion. Block-style quilts are easier to date than the medallions, which we find attributed to the years 1790 to 1850 in museum catalogs and other literature, often as "Ca. 1815."

Our database of  medallions with panels gives us a better guideline for dating them. When we arrange the ten quilts dated before 1840 in a timeline we see a cluster dated from 1828 to 1839 with the majority about 1833-34.

The narrowness of the time span is quite interesting and we will speculate more as to why these quilts were fashionable in such a short period in future posts. 

Dated 1830, attributed to Mary Green. 

Massachusetts Project & the Quilt Index

The database of American medallions indicates that a reasonable estimate for a similar, undated quilt is 1825-1840. Often the American quilts are dated by the English panel's printing as ca. 1815. As Merikay wrote in her AQSG paper: "The 'about 1815' date pertains only to the panel not the quilt....

the popularity of pre-printed panels increased in the United States as it waned in England."

When we add British medallion quilts to the timeline we see that British quiltmakers used panels earlier and for a longer period than Americans. This makes sense when we consider England as the source of the panel fabrics, which tend to be dated as "ca. 1815." We unfortunately do not have many records on when the mills produced the florals and garden scenes, but it is logical to assume that the three commemorative English panels below were printed in the years the event took place.

These three panels celebrate King George III's 50th anniversary in 1809-1810, Wellington's victory at the Battle of Vittoria in 1813 and Princess Charlotte's marriage in 1816, a good reason to date all the similar panels as about 1815 or 1810-1820.

When we add the date-implied commemorative panels to our timeline we see an overlap with the British quilts but a definite time lag with the American examples. Why? 

One more timeline:

When we add issues of trade such as embargoes, wars, tariffs on fabric and economic depressions to the American equation we see this cluster of  quilts is situated between two serious financial panics beginning in 1819 and 1837. The Napoleonic Wars about 1810-1815 had an enormous impact on fabric available in the U.S. Few shipments of English fabrics made it to U.S. shores at the height of  panel production in England. It seems the quilts grew out of a later abundance of panel fabric in a time of peace and prosperity.

"Quilt dated 1833

"Elizabeth Kimbrough Neil Brockinton, 

Presented by her mother, 9th Ap, 1833

Darlington Dist. So Ca."

This well-worn quilt in the Briscoe Center collection has four panels in the corners but the fabric is missing enough details that Merikay and curator Kate Adams could not figure out which panel it was.

http://www.cah.utexas.edu/db/dmr/image_lg.php?variable=e_wqh_0253

Guidelines for dating panel quilts with a central focus:

English quilt dated 1839 in the quilting.

From Quilt Treasures of Great Britain

Central panel is the 1813 Wellington panel.

This is the latest English frame panel bedcover with a date we have found.

For British panel frame quilts: 1810-1835.

For American panel medallions: 1825-1840.

Undated quilt, Collection of the Charleston Museum,attributed 

by the family to Mary Withers Read (1790-1817), Georgetown, South Carolina

Mary Withers Read probably never saw this quilt as she died in 1817 at least a decade before it was likely made.