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Counterpane 1976-59
Quilt, Blue Silk and Printed Cotton Wholecloth
Counterpane 1976-59

Quilt, Blue Silk and Printed Cotton Wholecloth

Dateca. 1736
Artist/Maker Ann Jones Flower
OriginAmerica, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
MediumBlue ribbed silk; block-printed cotton; wool batting
Dimensions103 1/2" H X 95" W
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Object number1976-59
DescriptionQuilt of medium blue silk with fine ribbed weave, reversing to block-printed cotton with wool fleece batting. Quilted in running stitches. The design has a central roundel, four pots of flowers growing inward toward the roundel, and corner segments enclosing tulips. The outer borders on all four sides have curved leaves or plumes. Guilloche bands and interlacing curves form narrow inner and outer guard borders. Block-printed cotton backing has a design printed in madder reds and black with pencilled blue. The half-drop repeat shows oval medallions of floral and lace motifs with picotage. Pineapple pendant. Cartouches frame motifs taken from fables, including fox by a well, reclining deer, fountain, and a wading bird. The ground is interspersed with floral sprigs. Picotage detail incorporated into printing.

Technical information: face fabric is 29 3/4" wide (as quilted). It is a finely ribbed silk taffeta. Quilting is 10-12 stitches per inch, using silk thread. The backing textile is cotton that measures 30 3/4" wide (as quilted). The vertical repeat is 10 1/2". The batting is wool.
Label TextAlthough printed textiles usually adorned the face of quilts, some bedcovers were made with calico for the backing. The use of a printed textile on the back of a silk-faced quilt appears to have originated in India, and the fashion continued in the Philadelphia community of Quaker quilters in the second and third quarters of the eighteenth century. The cotton backing of this quilt was block printed with two madder colors of black and red with the addition of pencil blue in a design of lacy oval frames, each enclosing a vignette with a well, reclining deer, and crane. Flowers fill in the remaining spaces. Although the origin of this printed textile is not known, it must have been imported.

The stitched quilting design in this superbly preserved quilt is typical of those in other quilts and quilted petticoats made by Philadelphia Quaker. The quilt features a center roundel, gadrooned vases with thin double handles, pomegranates and tulips at the ends of long stems, and inward-curving C-scroll leafy vines terminating in single flower heads. The ribbed silk face is quilted to the cotton backing through a batting of woolen fibers using silk running stitches. It is possible that the quilt design was drawn by a Philadelphia schoolteacher or professional designer, tentatively identified as Quaker schoolteacher Ann Marsh or possibly her mother Elizabeth Marsh.

ProvenanceAccording to dealer, family tradition states that quilt was made in 1736 by Ann Jones of Pennsylvania, who married Enoch Flower in 1736. Its descent was in the female line: Anne Wheeler, E. F. Paul, Mary P. Lownes, Sallie W. Morris, Mary Paul Morris, and Patricia Paul Brown (m. M. Henry Mills in 1950). Ann Jones Flower grew up a Quaker, but married a non-Quaker.