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Quilt, White Stuff Worked, Signed "Amanda Stewart"

Date1800-1830

Artist/Maker Amanda Stewart

OriginAmerica, New York

MediumCotton

DimensionsH: 99" W: 92" 7 to 10 running stitches per inch.

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1956-8

DescriptionThis is a white stuffed-worked quilt of tabby-woven cotton backed with very loosely woven cotton. The quilting is worked with running stitches at 7 to 10 stitches per inch in stuffed- worked technique featuring a large basket near the center from which spring long-stem flowers with grape vines and leaves. The same leaves and flower motifs decorate the undulating heavy vine which forms a deep border on three sides of coverlet. Centered between the bottom of the basket design and the border is the presumed name of the maker in large script capitals: "AMANDA/ STEWART." The corners were cut out at a later date to accommodate the posts of a tall-post bed. The quilt has all-over cotton batting and additional stuffings to create the raised design. The edges are turned inside and stitched together ("knife edge").
Label TextThis heavy white-on-white bed quilt has a bold central basket from which spring grape vines coiling around to enclose the maker's signature, "Amanda Stewart." The borders, originally forming the side drop to the floor from the bed, also feature giant undulating branches and an outer gadroon pattern.

Quilting with extra padding inserted in areas from the back is referred to as "stuffed work." In the twentieth century, it was sometimes called "trapunto," although that term was not used at the time the quilt was constructed.

Although the quilt came from the Cambridge, New York, vicinity, nothing more is known about the maker who so boldly signed her work.
MarkingsQuilted signature "Amanda Stewart" in script letters
ProvenanceThe bedcover was said to have been made by Amanda Stewart of Cambridge, New York; no further history known.