Images(3)

Quilt, Pieced Double Irish Chain

Date1860

Maker Member of the McLean-Eckhardt Family

OriginAmerica, Connecticut

MediumPlain and printed cottons

DimensionsOH: 90 1/2" x OW: 87"

Credit LineGift of Barbara Eckhardt Wicks

Object number2017.609.6

DescriptionThis is an almost square pieced quilt of red and white cotton in a double Irish chain pattern. The quilt is bound with two different folded ¾” wide blue cottons--one with white dots and the other with stars. It is backed in white cotton consisting of 5 pieces. The areas of white squares are finely quilted with a feather/plume medallion. The quilted pattern in the center of the medallions varies: hearts, parallel lines, diamonds, circles, flower petals, and star/spoke wheels. Two squares at the center top and bottom each contain two pair of scissors with the date 1860 in quilting stitches flanking the two pair of scissors. The bedcover is quilted in nine stitches per inch.
Label TextLike other quilt patterns, Irish Chain was named for a familiar everyday object--a surveying tool used for linear measurements. The overall Irish Chain design of pieced squares creates a secondary linked pattern across the quilts surface through the use of consistent shading. To date, the earliest reference to this pattern is 1849.Two squares in this quilt contain two pair of scissors with the date 1860 in quilting stitches. The quilt descended in the McLean-Eckhartd family of Hartford and Shelton, Connecticut, and was likely made by a family member.
MarkingsTwo squares at the center top and bottom each contain two pair of scissors with the date 1860 in quilting stitches flanking the two pair of scissors.
ProvenanceThe quilt descended from Elizabeth Nancy McLean Eckhardt, who grew up in Harford, Connecticut and lived in Shelton, Connecticut after her marriage and until her death, to her son, Malcom McLean Eckhardt, to his daughter, Barbara Eckhardt Wicks. It is presumed that the quilt was originally owned by Elizabeth N. McLean Echhardt's mother, Mary (Molly) Metcalf McLean of Connecticut.