Panel #4: Round Floral Bouquet

"S.C. Chester District

Sarah M. Wallace

1829"

Collection of the Atlanta History Center

The earliest date-inscribed American panel quilt is 1828 with Jane Allen Nesbitt's name on it. See a post here:
https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2019/05/atlanta-history-center-4-jane-allen.html

Sarah Wallace's, dated a year later, features Panel #4, a round floral with a central bouquet. A white, six-petaled flower catches your eye.

Sarah's quilt was sold at auction a few years ago.

Perhaps made by Sarah Knox Wallace (1803-1901)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/46497871/sarah-wallace

Interestingly enough, Sarah Knox Wallace's mother was named Jane Nesbit who married Hugh Knox of the Chester District (Districts in S.C. are like counties) in 1790. This Jane or Janet Nesbit Knox was born in Ireland in the 1760s (d. 1843) and is probably not the Jane Nesbitt whose name is on the quilt. But considering Southern naming patterns there were probably several related Jane Nesbitts in the family.

A third quilt is from the Wallace/Stevenson families of Richburg, Chester District, South Carolina, in the collection of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian. Panel #5 is in the center.

https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_556253

But we digress. Back to Panel #4, which seems to have been printed in a second colorway.

Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Panel 4 in the center and #10 in the corners, all very tan.

They know little about its origins.

The Smithsonian has another quilt with Panel #4

Attributed to Annie Righton Smith, Gift of Patricia Smith Melton

https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/appliqued-quilt-center-medallion-36874

We couldn't find any Annie Righton Smiths but the family may be that of Joseph and Elizabeth Fullerton Righton who had daughters Katherine Fullerton Righton Smith (1799-1843) and Ann Righton (1797-1857). 

The Rightons lived in this house in Charleston, the Righton House.

And interestingly enough Katherine married a man named William

Wallace Smith, born in Scotland in 1793.

The Wallace connection.

We don't know much about this one in a private collection

but it certainly looks like a Carolina quilt.

We've two more quilts with panel #4,  unlikely to

be related to any Wallaces in South Carolina.

This one is in Auckland, New Zealand in the Auckland War Museum where they have a typo in the date. It should read 1825-1850. It's attributed to Ireland.

https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/collections-research/collections/record/am_humanhistory-object-19159?class=Quilt%2C%20Bed&ordinal=8

And the last one: a very British looking with the frames of piecework giving a  textured look with small scale prints and the black panels that are most common in the U.K.

What Have We Learned from Panel #4?

When we began looking at Southern chintz quilts and panel quilts in particular we looked for family connections, figuring that women who were related might have worked together to make similar quilts with the same fabrics. 

1858 Portrait of a family

As we looked closer we realized family had very little relationship to style. Our conclusions now indicate that the chintz tops were probably purchased from workshops so women who didn't even know each other might have passed on similar quilts. However, quilts with this particular, rather unusual panel, may be an exception and knowing a family tree may help in determining the source of the fabric.

Panel #4 was not widely distributed in the United States: Six American quilts in the database. Perhaps some Wallace connection brought a few panels from England to the Carolinas as gifts.

Panel #13: Bouquet with Lily of the Valley

Panel #13 has a lily of the valley over on the left in an

oval (almost round) frame of oak leaves and acorns.

Atlanta History Center quilt

Most of our photos do not show the corners...

which include two red blossoms.

The Charleston Museum has a set of album blocks dated 1853 to 1855,

among them three with the central bouquet trimmed. Two are signed  Boyd. First

initials I or J, middle A or B. 

Collection of the Spartanburg County (SC) Regional Museum

Eight complete panels pieced into a simple composition. The quilting was said to have been done by slaves, a work-sharing story we often find.

Auction Newbury, UK

Four panels, two each of #13 and #15.

All that piecing and those heart appliques certainly look English. In the center

"1804 Mary Anne Radley"

As this date predates the panels we are guessing Mary Anne incorporated

an earlier piece of needlework into her patchwork.

A crib quilt top or just a fragment, top sold out of Vermont. Two

of the lily of the valley panels at the bottom.

Top from the International Quilt Study Center & Museum Collection

2014.016.0002

Panel 13 is right in the center with Panel 6 in the inner corners.

Notice how cleverly she pieced that border.

Each one of the 80 light triangles is cut from a panel corner and pieced into the border.

Someone had a lot of cabbage: Leftover corners from 20 panels.

Unfortunately, the triangle edges are all on the bias so the top is a little out of square.

Philoclea Casey Eve's quilt at the Atlanta History Center has eleven

copies of panel #13 in the outer border. Five are just the central bouquet;

six include the oak and acorn frame.

Someone used a trimmed bouquet for an album block on the left in this quilt from the Townsend-Pope family at the Edisto Island Museum. The oak leaf circle frames another chintz block in the center lower area.

The frame

We'd guess many chintz applique album blocks were cut from panel fabric but we can't always see the details in photos. Sharon Pinka arranged to have this quilt at AQSG in 2103 when she gave her paper "Lowcountry Chintz: The Townsend/Pope Quilt Legacy," Uncoverings 2013.

Nearly every quilt we have with Panel #13 that  has a reliable information on the source is from the Carolinas.

Quilt attributed to Ann Adeline Orr Parks of Charlotte, North Carolina

This one from a North Carolina family uses a dozen of panel 13 with 28 corners (leftovers from 7 panels) and 20 oak and acorn arcs from the frame (leftovers from 5 panels).

The larger center panel is #2

See more about the Parks quilts here:

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

Collection: Glorian Sipman

Sold from the Columbia, South Carolina estate of 

Jennie Clarkson Dreher Hazlehurst (1916-2006).

Panel 2 in the center with three supporting designs,

9, 12 and 13

From a Skinner's Auction

We've shown this quilt several times as it has five different panels in it

including a couple of #13 in the outer border at the bottom with #2 in the center.

The seamstress also made interesting use of panel corners.

Those triangular edge pieces look appliqued rather than pieced.

What Can We Learn from Panel #13?

The two quilts above indicate that Panel #13 is about one-fourth the size of the center panel #2. They are so close in coloring and style we wonder if the smaller panels were not sold as a suite to use with the larger. 

Panel 13 on the back, larger Panel 2

on the seat---a virtual chair

When you consider that the panels were used as furniture coverings you wonder if they were not designed for a two-part chair like the Photoshopped furniture above.

And all those corners we've been counting: Could they have been left overs from the upholstery and slip cover business? 

Gibson's Upholstery business from an 18th-century

trade card in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum

British Museum collection, 18th century

"Issac Astley, London,

Maketh and Selleth all sorts of Standing-Beds, Quilts..."

also chairs.

Bedcovers and upholstery, a good combination.

A Basted Panel Quilt

Basted chintz quilt piece

Historic Columbia Foundation.

We went to Columbia, South Carolina to see some quilts at the

Historic Columbia Foundation.

We were particularly interested in this unfinished piece in their collection.

The floral arrangement in the center is cut from Panel #2

Complete panel in the collection of the Winterthur Museum

The floral sits in a woven basket and more roses have been added from another chintz to give the bouquet a naturalistic look with buds sprouting along the edge.

Bouquets cut from that same rose chintz frame the

center.

I had to photostitch two pictures together to give you an overall view

of the rectangular piece, which seems to have been meant for the center

of a characteristic Carolina chintz spread.

It's all nicely basted in place. All you'd have to do

is trim away the background and applique the roses.

The woven basket even has the edges turned under for you.

Our hypothesis is that the piece was designed, cut and basted by a professional seamstress who sold kits to needleworkers who would then finish the applique fairly quickly and add some borders for a gorgeous spread.

Two-person collaboration was probably quite common in 19th-century applique, for example in the Baltimore Album blocks of the 1840s' and '50s.

City Springs basted block

Collection of the Maryland Historical Society

And probably many other styles of applique.

We guess the applique stitcher decided not to go ahead with the next step in the process of Broderie Perse or cut-out chintz. The background behind the roses had to be trimmed closer.

Trimming the floral background away in the panel would be no problem; the background was white. But trimming the background in the rose details was definitely a problem.

The background there was what was called a fancy machine

ground by the printers. You had to trim extremely close to eliminate

the dot pattern.

Which can be done. 

That grape tendril in a panel #5 quilt has been trimmed minutely.

Maybe the purchaser just never got around to trimming.

Whatever the reason we're grateful to find a basted center,

giving us a clue to how these bedcovers were made.

The picture files do not contain many panel bouquets in baskets.

But about a hundred miles away the Spartanburg County History Museum

has a very similar composition in their collection.

This one is a finished quilt with the same Panel #2

growing from a woven, flat basket. 

Additional flowers have been added around the circular panel.

Adding to the idea that these were basted and sold as kits of some kind

What Have We Learned from this Piece?

The basted center adds much to our hypothesis that many chintz panel quilts in the South were designed, cut and basted by professional seamstresses. Some hobbyists finished the applique and had them quilted, but others bought the finished bedcovers from those same workshops. We still are looking for evidence of these invisible seamstresses---the designers who supervised and the women who stitched.