Brooklyn Museum's Work't By Hand

Workt By Hand: Hidden Labor and Historical Quilts

is the name of a current exhibit and new catalog

from the Brooklyn Museum

Here's a link to more information about the show:

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/quilts/

Elizabeth Welsh. Quilt, circa 1825–40.

 Appliquéd cottons, 110 1/2 x 109 in.

 Brooklyn Museum, Gift of The Roebling Society, 78.36

The Museum has some exceptional quilts including the cover quilt, a fabulous appliqued eagle that is attributed to a Virginia woman Elizabeth Welsh. (More about this quilt in another post.)

Delectable Mountains Quilt, ca. 1850. 97 x 83 1/4 in. 

Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Charles L. Livingston, Jr., 62.141.16

I worked on the catalog's introduction,  participating in a roundtable on the social context of quilts, which I'll post about later. I have not yet seen the quilts in the cloth. The quilt cataloguing was done by Dr. Carolyn Ducey of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum. 

Medallion Quilt, ca.1830.  

103 1/4 x 104 in.  Brooklyn Museum, 

Gift of Mrs. William Sterling Peters, 49.27

Here's a link to the museum bookstore where you can buy the catalog:

http://shop.brooklynmuseum.org/worktbyhand.html

Pictorial Quilt, circa 1795. 

 91 x 103¼ in. (231.1 x 262.3 cm).

 Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 41.285. 

And here's a link to their collections page so you can see photos of their holdings:
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/search/?q=quilt&prev_q=&x=0&y=0

Victoria Royall Broadhead Tumbling Blocks Quilt,

 circa 1865–70. Silk, velvet, wood, 64 x 68 in.

 Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Richard Draper, 53.59.1.

This impressive silk quilt was made by a woman with the equally impressive name of Victoria Regina Royall. Victoria, born in Virginia in 1839 a year after Queen Victoria's coronation, married Garland Carr Broadhead, a professor of geology at the University of Missouri in 1890.

The quilt show will be up until September 15. The Brooklyn Museum has several other concurrent shows that make a trip worthwhile, including:

• John Singer Sargent Watercolors (93 of them) up from April 5 - July 28
• American Drawing Before 1945 (100 drawings) through May 26
• El Anatsui - 30 pieces-through Aug 4

And Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party is a permanent installation there.