British quilt historian Bridget Long has in her collection a patchwork top featuring this dark panel with a scroll border. She showed it in the Elegant Geometry exhibit she curated for the International Quilt Study Center and Museum a few years ago.
The panel is the central focus in a hexagon design, a lovely example of British style.
We have three examples of bedcovers with this scroll. Kay and Lori Lee Triplett have
another British top in their collection with two panels at the top edge here.
Another example of British style, a frame quilt with pieced borders, a good deal of chintz and white as a minor accent. The rectangular pieces in the final side borders are a good clue to a British quilt. American quiltmakers did not piece borders of rectangles in that fashion in the early 19th century.
The unknown seamstress pieced two panel scraps together
to get one whole, a nice job of matching.
In their book on Chintz Quilts they call this the Scroll Medallion with Black Background.
We have detail shots of a third British bedcover sold at Christie's.
Different British style, this one featuring the unconfined applique shapes
typical of British applique. Here white becomes an important background.
We have only one other scroll-edged panel and only one example of it.
This one with a brick-red background was found in North America on
Canada's Prince Edward Island.
Again we have a frame quilt of pieced borders (appliqued stars) but with an overall color scheme of pale pinks, blues and purples---British taste.
What Have We Learned From the Dark Panels?
It's no surprise that 19th-century British and U.S. American quiltmakers had distinctive styles. We've described a few characteristics above.
British Style
Frame quilts with pieced borders
Hexagon and other paper-pieced mosaics
Applique pieces tossed about without formal symmetries
But we also see another style idea, a preference for dark ground panels like
the Wellington panel we discussed a few weeks ago.
See that post here:
Americans favored the light ground panels, like the fruit basket
in this quilt by Ann Adeline Parks Orr from the North Carolina project.
Trophy of arms panel in a bedcover in the Newark Museum.
Fruit panel in a bedcover from a Wooley & Wallis auction in Salisbury, England
When British quilters used the light-ground panels they tended to use them in different fashion. Style characteristics enable us to determine pretty quickly if a quilt looks British or looks American.
When American quiltmakers used the dark ground panels......
But.....we have only two quilts in our U.S. files with dark ground panels:
Philadelphia Museum of Art
When we saw this small piece in Philadelphia we were quite surprised. Where was it made?
It really doesn't follow any style formula.
International Quilt Study Center and Museum
If it's a dark-ground panel it's probably British.
Dark ground panel in the lower border of the Fife Coverlet in the collection
of the British Quilters' Guild.
Penny Tucker sent a photo of a bouquet with a blue bow from Wales.
But here's another exception:
This certainly looks like a dark ground panel in the center of a very
American strip quilt in the collection of Mary Koval.
The white shape at the top of the oval seems to be a rip in the fabric
This album is attributed to the Wistar family of Philadelphia
1840s.
