Queen Victoria: Quilts Celebrating Her Reign

Portrait of Queen Victoria in a silk quilt in the collection

of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum #2016_023_0001

Queen Victoria's 1887 Jubilee celebrating 50 years on the throne was a joyous anniversary,

commemorated with quilts.

Not much is known about this Victorian extravaganza. Many of the blocks 

include silk woven pictures, Stevengraphs, with portraits of the Royal Family

and politicians of the late Victorian era.

The Princess and Prince of Wales are below the Queen in the center.

Princess Alexandra's portrait is probably from this ribbon, a woven Stevensgraph.

Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli is to Victoria's right.

Other ribbons frame the central portraits.

Jubilee Quilt by Mrs. Mills. 

Quilters Guild Collection

"Made by Mrs Mills of Crook, it was given as payment to her landlord in lieu of rent."

In the corners Mrs. Mills embroidered a portrait on  a velvet star.

Jubilee Quilt 1887–90, Christina Blythe, 

Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery

The Prince of Wales feathers in the center of this table cover or

bed cover made in Tasmania indicates it referred to the crown.

Ribbons and Stevensgraphs recalling the occasion must have been preserved 

in many crazy quilts. I have detail pictures of two American quilts with similar ribbons,

From the Arizona project and the Quilt Index

Hexagon mosaic from a Wooley & Wallis auction

 with portrait silks in the center of the star

Detail of a quilt in the collection of Howard & Carole Tanenbaum

shown at the Textile Museum of Canada several years ago

Victoria lived to celebrate her 60th anniversary on the throne in 1897

and Methodists in Tyneside made a signature quilt to remember the occasion.

England's Tennant's Auctions offered this bedcover with a bandana from the 1897 

event, framed by some faux patchwork and floral cretonnes.

Yardage of the bandana

Augusta Auctions sold a full color version---or maybe just

an unfaded version. Those end-of-the-century blues

were quite fugitive.

I also have pictures of two machine-woven Marseille-style bedcovers

this one with a portrait in the center....

and this one which has the royal arms in the center

and Prince of Wales plumes in the corners

Slightly different version in the design by Christopher Dresser.

Central portrait of the Queen in an embroidered bedcover dated

1899 and 1902 celebrating the Boer Wars. The multicolored

embroidery looks more like post 1915 though.

In the collection of the Hereford Museum and Art Gallery

See a post about quilts and fabric commemorating Victoria's coronation here:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2017/05/queen-victoria-coronation-prints.html