Pictorial Crazy Quilts in Cretonne

 

Found in the New Hampshire project. Photo from the Quilt Index.

Here's a distinctive quilt style that seems to be a New England regional idea. Quilts grow out of the fabric available and these pictorial, large-scale prints seem to have been abundant there in the 1880s and '90s.

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts owns a similar quilt with a large-scale floral border. The furnishing fabrics might have been called chintz but at the end of the 19th century the term was cretonne.

Oscar Wilde and his sunflower probably inspired by

his 1882 tour of the U.S.

See Louise Tiemann's post on the Oscar fabric

http://quiltpapers.blogspot.com/2019/02/my-oscar-has-some-new-old-famous-friends.html

The James Garfield campaign print dates from 1880.

https://collections.mfa.org/objects/492633

Several museums own similar examples:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's also has an Oscar print.

Arab Lancers on horseback was a popular print.

Puppies! You wonder if these were not made

for children. What fun to talk about the pictures.

The above two details are from a quilt in the Spencer Museum of

Art at the University of Kansas. I took lots of detail photos

 but couldn't find a good all over shot.

The Moda/United Notions collection also has a block

style version.

Here's one signed and dated Harriet Smith, 1885 from Stella Rubin's shop.

Not crazy, just fussy cut squares including some cheater cloth.

Makes one wonder how so many stitchers acquired so many prints.

Factory cutaways?

From Florence Peto's collection, a medallion format.

This one also has a portrait of Chester Arthur who became President in 1881 after Garfield was assassinated. Style is more the cut-out-chintz applique that was out of fashion by the 1880s.

Another take on cut-out-chintz or Broderie Perse,

auctioned this year in New Haven, Connecticut.

So when you see one think "New England, 1880s-1900."

In 1886 the Mayflower won the America's Cup.

UPDATE: Julie Silber sent details of one in her collection dated 1886.

The bird fabric and the binding are a crepe, textured cretonne. 

It's also a form of Broderie Perse, cut-out chintz.

Blocks may be by different stitchers.

Mikado theme

Read more about cretonne here:
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2010/08/document-and-reproduction-cretonne.html

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2015/09/stars-in-time-warp-35-cretonne.html

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2013/11/cretonne-novelty-prints.html

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2013/10/celebrating-cretonne.html

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2020/09/cretonne-quilt-backs.html