QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Wednesday, July 3, 2019

Honstain Quilt in Context #2: A Doppelganger

Lucinda Ward Honstain quilt
International Quilt Study Center & Museum

I was leafing through a 1975 Quilt Engagement Calendar, the first of 
a great series that published photos of antique quilts for a decade or more.
Editor Cyril Nelson got most of his photos from New York antique dealers.
I stumbled upon this sampler top:

... from the collection of dealer George E. Schoellkopf.


The caption:
Plate "41. Applique quilt top, dated 1867, New England. 88" x 79". 
Photograph George E. Schoellkopf Gallery. (Privately Owned)"

I doubt it's a New England quilt for reasons I showed yesterday.

Red sashing, corner imagery, cats and tulips. Got to be New York.

Wait a minute, it's a twin (fraternal) to Lucinda Honstain's sampler.

The quilt on the left is 84" x 97"
The one on the right 79" wide x 88"

"E B
1867
Tom"

The unfinished top has cross-stitched initials in many blocks. The pink cat Tom
is dated the same year as Lucinda's: 1867


The cross-stitch is similar to the Honstain quilt dated the same year. Only a few blocks in that
quilt are inscribed.


The Honstain quilt has two cats, one with a little bird cut from a rainbow blue stripe teasing him just like the birds in the quilt top.

Both have a dog and a dog house and a tree.
The blocks on the left maybe a little larger. The images are usually simpler in the top
and the detail not quite so fine.



A sailor. Lucinda Honstain's son-in-law Hamilton Bingham was
a Union sailor in the Civil War.

A Temple of Liberty perhaps

Simpler on the right but the same letters *L I B E R T Y*
over the figure of Miss Liberty in her liberty cap with her liberty pole.


"Jeff Davis & Daughter" on the left. Flag-holding girl on the right.

The imagery in the corners is another clue to a New York quilt.

Fish Fry

Camel


IQSCM has two quilts from the Honstain family, the sampler
which has been attributed to Lucinda Ward Honstain and a Tulip quilt
with daughter Emma Honstain Bingham's initials on it. Both feature this tulip or lily
that is a characteristic of New York quilts.



What to make of it?
I'm thinking. More tomorrow.

2 comments:

  1. Younger person in the family?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why would they put the camel in these quilts? It’s not a local animal, I don’t think!

    ReplyDelete