Panel #5 features a basket of fruit in a round ring of scallop shapes...
with leaves and berries. Four identical corners also feature fruit---
the pineapple, grapes and peaches predominating in the basket.
Colonial Williamsburg owns two bedcovers with the panel as well as two pieces of the fabric, one trimmed into a circle, perhaps meant to be featured in a bedspread.
This one has a flaw in the printing, a streak, perhaps
why it was never used.
The curators describe the panel as about 25 inches square, "block-printed in madder colors with the addition of yellow and pencilled blue on cotton ground with glazed finish."
We have photos in two colorways, at the top whole chintz with
green, yellow, orange and a slightly fading purple.
The lower a demi-chintz in red, brown and blue
The influences are obvious with lush fruit a symbol of abundance in decorative arts.
Sevres plate in Pompadour pink
And plump peaches perhaps a metaphor for sensuality.
Furber's fruit print for October, published in 1732
Furber's prints undoubtedly inspired British textile designers.
Chintz bedcover
Colonial Williamsburg #2009.609.1
This piece is 128 inches wide.
When William Rush Dunton collected information for his book Old Quilts in the 1930s and '40s he found that quilt in the collection of Mrs. Jacob Baer. He attributed a number of similar quilts to Achsah Goodwin Wilkins but it makes more sense to attribute them to her family and household servants rather than one individual
He pictured many similar quilts and seven with the fruit panel in the center.
A few years ago collector William Volckening found another that Dunton had not photographed.
The Volckenings have given the eighth spread to the DAR Museum.
These Baltimore medallions often include several examples of Panel #6, a smaller oval.
See our post on #6 here:
Several spreads are bordered on three sides with stripes of a related print...
with the same fruit and a chain of scallop shapes.
But Baltimore was not the only city with an abundance of fruit panel fabric.
Quilt attributed to Catherine Osborn Barnwell Barnwell (1809-1886)
Charleston Museum
The Charleston Museum owns four quilts featuring the fruit basket, all descending in the families of Charleston's pre-Civil-War elite families.
Margaret Eliza Darley Seyle Burges (1804-1877)
Charleston Museum
The ring around the basket is cut from the scallop shapes,
a detail we often see.
Attributed to Sarah Eliza Reynolds Croft (c. 1790-1859)
From the Walker family
Hannah Noland Henderson (About 1810-1890)
Pomaria, Newberry County, South Carolina
Charleston Museum
This quilt's focus is the Trophy of Arms Panel (#3) but
14 fruit panels are included in the border---the leftovers
from 4 fruit baskets.
We have numerous examples of quilts in which the corners from panel #5 are the decorative details.
A swag of fruit panel parts in a quilt from the Wallace & Stevenson
families of Richburg, South Carolina in Chester County up by North Carolina.
British quilt from the collection of the British Quilters Guild.
And we have many other pictures with
fragments of panel #5.
Why was this particular panel so popular?
When and where was it printed?
When did it arrive in the U.S.?
We'll post again about the fruit panel.
What Have We Learned from Panel #5?
The Baltimore quilts attributed to the Wilkins/Goodwin families often pair the striped fruit border with the center round basket. We assume these were companion fabrics, printed by the same unknown British mill and offered for sale at the same time.
Dunton described it as "a beautiful arrangement of fruit, pineapples, peaches, grapes, strawberries, cherries, plums, persimmons and ears of wheat."
We've photos of three colorways of the stripe, the left one--- the basic design in madders with added blue. The center has added yellow and some more clumsy blue and the one on the right a rather graceful full chintz or whole chintz with green.
The differences in print quality raise questions:
Same mill?
One a knock-off?
Julia at Pique Trouver has this striped beauty for sale:
We wonder how many other panels were designed with a companion fabric.
Panel #3 the Trophy of Arms design was almost as popular as the fruit panel.
Were any of the borders we see in those bedcovers designed to match?
From Cora Ginsburg/Titi Halle
Ann Adeline Orr Parks quilt with panel #1 in the center,
From the North Carolina project
The Fife Coverlet,
Collection of the British Quilters Guild
Panel #2 in the center, a popular floral stripe as a border.
Some Reproductions
Wendy Reed
Ann Hermes
Terry Terrell
Lori Lee Triplett
The Tripletts sell reproduction panels in
in 6, 12 and 25 inch versions.
