Quilt

Description

This unusual blue resist wholecloth quilt features a pattern of a man in late eighteenth-century costume holding a pipe and a tobacco leaf, surrounded by a variety of floral motifs common in Pennsylvania German iconography. A set of bed hangings in Winterthur’s collection (1985.0162A-D) is printed with the same border pattern. This quilt also appears to have been made from bed hangings and turned into a quilt, most likely during the early nineteenth century. The variation across motif placement indicates that it was printed with small blocks. Supported by the appearance of the plant to the right of each man, the indigo dye in this quilt may come from the woad plant. The origin of this central pattern and its printer are currently unknown, but the quilt was purchased in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and at one point belonged to the Nead family. While there is documentation of blue dyeing and paste print, also referred to as indigo reists, as a practice by Pennsylvania Germans, extant examples are rare, and this pattern is especially unusual. However, the representational style in this quilt resembles fraktur drawings that depict humans.