QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Saturday, May 26, 2012

Album Quilt Part 2 Rockland County NY

QUILT #1

In this album quilt in the last post the dog caught my eye, reminding me of another quilt with a dog or two.
QUILT #2
There's a similar dog and another cut from chintz.

These quilts have more than dogs in common. The names on the blocks are from the same families. The quilt directly above was sold at Sotheby's and advertised as

FINE AND RARE APPLIQUÉ, PIECED AND EMBROIDERED FRIENDSHIP QUILT TOP BY THE VAN HOUTEN, BLAUVELT AND THOMAS FAMILIES AND OTHERS, ROCKLAND COUNTY, NEW YORK DATED 1860-1862

the quilt top on muslin with seventy-two unique individual squares, each by a different maker in a different style of appliquè, embroidery and Berlin work, and each measuring approximately 10 inches square. Sixty-six of the squares have identifiable names or initials; a book of Blauvelt family genealogy and extensive historical information about the known contributors comprise part of this lot.
4 pieces

You may recall from the last post that the dog on Quilt # 1 was made by a Van Houten.
"Little, Miss Mary Van Houten
Made a dog, would set you shouting,
He is going with his basket, quiet
I do not think, he means to try it."

There are many Blauvelts on both
On quilt # 1
Mrs. M. Blauvelt
Mrs. Eliza Blauvelt
Maria Blauvelt
Lucretia Blauvelt
I have had Blauvelts on the brain as I have been thinking about a pictorial quilt from the family of Ellen Blauvelt Hasbrouck that is in the Smithsonian. See the 1812 blog post today here:
http://quilt1812warandpiecing.blogspot.com/2012/05/another-new-york-pictorial-quilt.html

And then there is this quilt dated 1855 which was auctioned at Skinner Auctions in 2010

QUILT #3
From Rockland County, New York

There are no dogs but it is very much like Quilt # 1 stylistically

A few of the style characteristics in common:

1) Almost identical border of bowknots and swags

E. Dizendurf (?)

2) Similar symmetries (or lack of symmetry) in the blocks.


Lavina Haring
3) Use of corner designs in each block that create secondary patterns when blocks are set side by side.
One name all three have in common is Haring.

And didn't Eliza Cooper (here on Quilt #3) write the poem for Quilt #1 that was on the last blog post?


The Blauvelts signed other quilts too.



Here's an album now in the collection of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum with a list of signatures here:
Among them: Joanna Blauvelt, H A Blauvelt and Mary Haring


And an album pieced of stars in the Nyack Historical Society collection includes these names:
Catherine E. Blauvelt,  Cornelia C. Blauvelt, Kate Blauvelt, M.E. Blauvelt, Maggie Blauvelt
and Margaret Blauvelt
plus Harings and Van Houtens.
Read more here:
http://www.dutchdoorgenealogy.com/quilts-rockland-county-bergen-county.html


These New Yorkers were productive quiltmakers. The signatures can tell us a lot.
The Quilt Index has a signature quilt project---recording the names on the quilts, a very useful tool for genealogists and local historians. Read about it here:http://www.quiltindex.org/sqpessay.php



4 comments:

  1. You are going to get me looking for dogs now, lol.
    I like the block with the polka dot dog and bird, that would be a fun one to do.

    Debbie

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  2. Thanks for all these wonderful (one might say exuberant) New Yorn quilts! And your perceptive analysis. Look back at the Reconciliation Quilt by Lucinda Ward Honstain, Brooklyn New York, late 1860's, and you will also see dogs, those three-leaved corner motifs and animals positioned on floating pieces of grass or ground. There are more similarities. Lucinda Ward grew up in Westchester Co near the Hudson in that same general region of NY counties right above NYC. This post should add a great deal to the scholarship relating to the Recinciliation Quilt.

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  3. As always, a post full of beautiful quilts, lots of info, and wonderful history. Thanks, Barbara!

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  4. I have a red and green signature album quilt made in Chester County PA in 1852. I am doing the name research through Ancestry.com. According to my family the quilt was a wedding quilt for my g-g-grandparents. However, that means the couple in the centre block are the bride's parents, not the bride and groom. Any thoughts on this apparent paradox?

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