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1970-159, Blanket
Blanket, Wool with "Rose" Design
1970-159, Blanket

Blanket, Wool with "Rose" Design

Date1790-1810
OriginGreat Britain; owned in America, New England
MediumWool (fiber identification by microscope)
DimensionsOW: 62"; OL: 80"; Diameter of rose: about 14 inches
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Object number1970-159
DescriptionThis is a rectangular blanket woven of handspun natural wool with a half-inch stripe of natural brownish-black wool at top and bottom edges. The plain-woven surface is heavily napped and the four corners decorated with large embroidered motifs, about 14 inches in diameter, featuring 8-pointed stars and surrounds worked in long straight stitches and herringbone stitches in red, orange, green, and black plied-wools. The raw ends are stitched with red wool blanket stitches; the sides are finished with the selvages. No center seam.

The long, loose stitches of the "roses" have been caught down by cotton couching threads as a modern conservation measure.
Label TextIn the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, blankets decorated with embroidered stars or wheels in the corners were known as "rose blankets." They were a common import to America from Britain. In 1768, Virginian Robert Nicholas ordered from his agent John Norton in London "3 Pr. Best and finest double mill'd rose large Bed Blankets." In 1773, Robert Beverly of Blandfield, Virginia, ordered "4 pair of best rose Blankets."

This blanket has a history in the Perez and Hannah Brightman Richmond family of Westport, Massachusetts, and later Rhode Island.
ProvenanceFamily tradition claims this and other blankets acquired from the family were made by Hannah Brightman Richmond (1752-1835), wife of Perez Richmond (1741-1803), the great-grandfather of the vendor Miss Isabelle W. Lawrence. This blanket is almost certainly an imported object used by Mrs. Richmond's family, rather than being woven by her.