Cushion cover for easy chair

DateTextile-Dated 1761

Artist/Maker R. Jones

MediumCotton, linen, wool

DimensionsTop measures 22" deep X 32" wide (with ruffle hanging down)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1963-36,10

DescriptionSlipcover or case cover for an easy chair cushion made of white cotton-linen textile, copperplate-printed in red. T-shaped cushion cover is bound with red-and-white linen-and-wool patterned tape. The front has a gathered flounce edged with red-and-white cotton-and-wool fringe. The reverse or underside of the cushion is made of floral striped blockprinted cotton in red, brown, and blue. Narrow tapes are stitched at the rear underside for fastening the cover closed. The design is a portion of a red copperplate-printed pastoral scene signed by I. Jones, Old Ford, 1761. The design shows a shepherd playing a flute, a woman spinning, farm animals, and a ruined structure.
Label TextRobert Jones, the designer of this textile, borrowed from a number of engraved sources for his large-scale design. The pastoral scene of a spinster and flute-playing shepherd, featured on the top of the cushion, is taken from an engraving by Dutch artist Nicolaes Berchem, published in 1652, over a hundred years before the textile itself was designed. Other sections of the copperplate design are derived from seventeenth and eighteenth century engravings: a 1740 engraving by Josephus Sympson after a painting by Marmaduke Cradock and a 1680–1700 book by Francis Barlow entitled “Animals of Various Species Accurately Drawn.”

The maker of the cushion cover turned the seams to the outside and bound them with a decorative tape, a technique often seen on other slipcovers of the period. The ruffle would have hung down in front of the easy chair, possibly to camouflage a chamber pot. A late-eighteenth-century block-printed striped cotton is used to form the underside of the cushion.

This was once part of a set of textiles for a bed chamber that originally included bed hangings and several ruffled covers for side chairs. The matching side chair cover is accession number 1963-36, 12.

MarkingsR.Iones/1761; R.I. & Co./Old Ford/1761
ProvenancePurchased from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston as part of a set of matching furnishings.