Collector Electra Havemeyer Webb in the 1950s at her Shelburne Museum with two chintz quilts--- one of the Townsend/Pope albums from South Carolina on the left and a medallion with an impressive border on the right.
We've been posting about the many quilts made with Panel #5, the Fruit Basket Panel. We count over 50 in the U.S. and the U.K and Canada.
In the last post we contrasted two distinctive styles using the same fruit panel---chintz applique medallion on the left, British pieced frame quilt on the right. But many bedcovers do not fit neatly into that American/British dichotomy.
Dealer Laura Fisher had this quilt in her inventory years ago:
Panel #5 in the center floating in a field of
patchwork diamonds and hexagons, long hexagons.
From an online auction, sold out of Vermont
but made where?
We might guess England, the hexagons, the field of patchwork framing the center.
Except one cannot just say Hexagons: Britain.
The hexagon quilt below is reliably said to have originated in
South Carolina, according to the granddaughter who donated the quilt in 1942.
Collection of the Charleston Museum
Attributed to Catherine Barnwell Barnwell of Beaufort, SC (1809-1886)
See a post on this quilt.
Initials A.E.W. crosstitched in the panel
Uncut panel in the center of pieced and appliqued frames in
the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Hexagons.
This quilt, thought to be British, was given by American collector
Peggy Westerfield to honor Curator Peter Floud.
Michigan State University Collection
Above: Another with complex borders around Panel #5, donated with
information that the family lived in Pearlington, Mississippi.
Collection of the DAR Museum, date inscribed 1852.
Descended in the Gillam family from Greenville, South Carolina.
Just the basics, one panel, a lot of chintz stripes cut to frame, in this late example.
The two below with sawtooth triangle borders are apparently American
Crib Quilt 40" Square
Found in York County, Pennsylvania.
Feathered Saw Tooth Star from the Triplett's Quilt & Textile Collections
Kay Triplett points out the use of the fruit panel's scalloped frame and corner scraps
to create cornucopias.
Detail of the scalloped frame
A few scallops under the basket plus a butterfly and a few leaves
added at the top. Clever use of small scraps.
What Have We Learned From Panel #5?
Collection of the Atlanta History Center
We've shown many of the bedcovers featuring the fruit basket panel.
- Panel #5 is the most commonly used panel.
- Quilts with reliable attributions come from both the coastal United States and Great Britain.
- We have many more pictures of bedcovers from the southern U.S. than the north, with two regional centers, Baltimore and the Carolinas.
Quilt from the MacMillan family
Collection of the North Carolina Museum of History
- Style includes formula settings indicating workshop production as well as unique formats indicating seamstresses working on their own designs.
- A stripe with fruit was likely printed as a companion fabric in a suite.
- We have three dated examples---all American: 1832, 1839 and 1852: a 20-year span indicating the general period 1825-1860, when these chintz quilts were being made.
Dated 1832, Rosannah McCullough,
Possibly Lincoln County, North Carolina
North Carolina Museum of History Collection.
Curator Diana Bell-Kite recently sent us this photo. Thank you!
A good way to wrap up the ubiquitous fruit basket posts.
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