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Quilt 2018.609.11
Quilt, Appliquéd Framed Center Medallion
Quilt 2018.609.11

Quilt, Appliquéd Framed Center Medallion

Dateca. 1845
Attributed to Mrs. MacLean
OriginAmerica, Georgia or South Carolina (probably)
MediumPlain and printed cottons with bone rings (materials identified by lab)
DimensionsOverall: 104 × 102in. (264.2 × 259.1cm); OH (including rings): 105 in.
Credit LineMuseum Purchase, The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections Fund
Object number2018.609.11
DescriptionThis is a large almost square appliquéd quilt in a center medallion format. The center medallion consist of an appliquéd chintzwork floral design. An undulating border of printed brown fabric surrounds the floral design. There is a second border of chintzwork. The third concentric border and most outer border consists of an undulating vine of printed brown cotton with appliquéd chintzwork floral designs. In the top left corner is a stamp "Rockrimm / Extra Super [Fine] / D" with the figure of a dog. The quilt is quilted in a clam shell pattern in running stitches about 6-7 per inch. The front is folded to the back to create an edge finish.
Label TextChintzwork appliquéd quilts in a framed center-medallion format were
fashionable in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuries. This one is somewhat unusual, though, in its scrolling inner and outer borders. Georgia and South Carolina quilt makers tended to hold on to this quilt style longer than quilters in other regions of the country. A letter written by a distant family member states this quilt was made by Mrs. MacLean of Sandyhills Plantation on the river above Atlanta in 1851.

Markings"Rockrimm / Extra Super [Fine] / D"
ProvenanceAccording to family history, this quilt was made by a Mrs. (Armitage) MacLean (d. 1905) at a plantation called Sandy Hill in Georgia. The quilt passed to Mrs. MacLean's daughter, Mrs. William Stewart, who then left it to her cousin's son, Rev. Donald MacDonald-Millar (1884-1973), when she died in 1940. MacDonald-Millar sought to sell the quilt in 1971 and the next documented owner is a Mrs. Tawes (1887-1989) of Maryland. The quilt then passed to Christine Hoene (d. 2018), a relative of Mrs. Tawes. Upon Hoene's death, her husband gifted the quilt to Jeanne Futter, who then sold it to CWF.