"Wellington
Vittoria"
Panel #26
Panel #26
During the long war between France and Britain that lasted from 1799-1815 Arthur Wellesley, then Viscount Wellington, defeated Napoleon's armies at a battle in Spain near the city of Vitoria in 1813. England celebrated with this panel (spelled by the English Vittoria) which we can date to 1813.
The first Duke of Wellington
by George Dawe
The panel style, an octagonal design with a dark background and a triple frame with blue ovals pinning the corners, is similar to other English panels, leading us to conclude that the panel type was produced in the early teens. The frame echoes Georgian silver and other decorative arts.
We have five quilts with this panel, all from Great Britain. Americans would be a very unlikely market for this commemorative honoring one of their English enemies during the War of 1812.
The corners feature different images: the thistle symbolizing Scotland,
the rose England and the shamrock Ireland.
Knowing the date when the panel was produced does not give us much information about when the quilts using it were made. True, we have an early date. A quilt with the Wellington/Vittoria panel couldn't have been produced before 1813, but the ending date is up in the air.
The lag time between the panel's production and quilts using it
is sometimes surprising.
Chapman Coverlet, date-inscribed 1829
Collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum
106" x 98"
A linen label under the panel is embroidered with the names
John and Elisabeth Chapman, September 19, 1829.
The museum caption indicates this piece evolved over nearly a century. The papers behind the curved patchwork blocks date from the 1790s, recycled pages from ledger and copy books and receipts from Rochester in Kent.
The poem on the label is an epitaph by William Grove about a "lucky husband" published in the late 1790s.
The final striped border is fabric from the 1890s.
The book Quilt Treasures of Great Britain showed a quilt with the Wellington panel in a field of patchwork, dated in the quilting 1834, attributed to a dressmaker in North Devon named Jemima Puddicombe.
In her 1965 book Patchwork Quilts Averil Colby showed this quilt attributed to Aunt Lucy Gane, telling us, "It is probable that this work was done soon after the printing of the commemorative panel in 1813." But looking at the two quilts above makes us realize we cannot be so sure. The double four patch borders seem later. A close look at the other fabrics would narrow the date from "After 1813."
Auctioned at Tennant's Auctions
This frame quilt with four Wellington panels also looks
to date to well "after 1813."
The emphasis on block designs looks far later than the early 19th century.
On the other hand, British quilt historian Mary Jenkins showed this early quilt on her blog Little Welsh Quilts after finding it pictured at auction at the Penrith Farmers' Auction in Cumbria, northern England.
The fabric and the overall style, to say nothing of the appliqued scenes,
look very much in keeping with a date of "Early 19th century, after 1813."
The single panel looks to be stitched into some kind of a flap. Mary noted the piece was in poor condition, perhaps due to deterioration in the appliqued figures, which look to be "dressed pictures," fabric over paper---an unstable situation.
The panel here is untrimmed and gives us information about the
repeat---apparently, a floral stripe separated the panels.
UPDATE:
The British Quilt Guild Heritage Project's book Quilt Treasures of Great Britain in their chapter on fabric alerts us to a second Wellington chintz.
"Two medallions were printed to commemorate the victories of the Duke of Wellington. They were identical except for the name of the battle concerned. One was for his victory in 1813 over the French at Vittora in Spain, and the second was for his famous victory of 1815 at Waterloo."
Jemima Puddicombe's 1834 quilt above has the second medallion/panel at Halifax but the photo is too small to tell us anymore.
What Can We Learn from Panel #26?
The Wellington panel gives us a good example of the folly in dating quilts to the years when the panels were likely produced "1810-1820". We have a 21-year lag in the 1834 Jemima Puddicombe quilt and examination of the fabrics in a couple of the undated quilts above might reveal a longer lag.
Why the lag? Our first thought was that people and families kept the panels for years until someone found a use for them.
Stalls at the Wrexham Market Fair,
where much fabric was sold for centuries
But our second thought relates to commerce. Perhaps some shopkeeper, stall keeper or wholesaler found a supply of fabric from the teens and offered it at a nice discount twenty years later.
See Mary Jenkins's post on the pictorial quilt here:
Below panels with similar frames:
