QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Sunday, June 30, 2024

Indigo Resist #5: Current Scholarship on Sources

 

International Quilt Museum 
Wholecloth bedcover of indigo pomegranate print with a later pieced border.

Caption from their 2013 exhibit Indigo Gives America the Blues
https://www.internationalquiltmuseum.org/exhibition/indigo-gives-america-blues

In the ten + year since Nao Namura curated that show on indigo for the
International Quilt Museum, scholarship about the geographic sources for these early
large-scale indigo resist prints from the 18th century has evolved.

Collection of Colonial Williamsburg
Detail of an Indigo Resist wholecloth quilt they date as 1750-1800

The distinctive designs have been attributed to several countries of origin. See this series of posts about political and cultural reasons for hypotheses that the fabric and wholecloth quilts were made in the New York/Connecticut area in the 18th century. Currently, American origins have been dismissed as no evidence exists aside from the survival here of many similar bedcovers and fragments. England as a possible source has been considered but little evidence supports this claim.


Roderic H. Blackburn, Ruth Piwonka, Remembrance of Patria: Dutch Arts and Culture in Colonial America, 1609-1776, Exhibit Catalog 1986. Albany Institute of Art and History

Once we venture into the British & Dutch East India Companys' history of trade with the Americas I am way over my head. 

The British East India Company built infrastructure in India such 
as this late-17th-century trading post in Surat.

Headquarters in London, mid 18th century

One had to sail around Africa to deliver Indian cottons to England.
Then across the Atlantic to the American colonies from Massachusetts south
to the West Indies.


Paulus Constantijn La Fargue (1729-1782) was a Dutch genre painter who depicted many mid 18th-c women in The Hague dressed in large-scale indigo resist prints.



Detail of a market scene by La Fargue

It is obvious that British traders geared specific exports to specific markets. Laws as well as taste dictated what could be sold where. It seems apparent that English consumers were uninterested in splashy blue & white cottons while other trading partners offered a profitable market---New York's colonists and the Dutch who had much in common including a taste for similar prints, for example the Van Rensselaers.

Detail of a textile in the Albany Institute donated
by the Van Rensselaer family

The Van Rensselaers left Holland for North America in the late 17th century. Early and influential, they were granted enormous land assets in the area of Albany---700,000 acres. Dutch families with fewer assets also left similar textiles.

New Yorker Magdalena Douw (1718-179?) painted by Albany 
artist John Heaton about 1740 on the cover of Blackburn & Piwonka's catalog

Blackburn & Piwonka quote Philip Livingston (1686-1749) a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a New York textile merchant dealing with London who knew what his customers wanted---"Blew...All large flowers...None Small Single flowers."
In 2013 staff at the Metropolitan Museum exhibited related textiles and published a catalog Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade 1500-1800


Amelia Peck, Curator of American Decorative Arts, wrote about indigo resist textiles in the collection.
Unfortunately, Peck did not include a comprehensive discussion of the evidence but a glance at writing on the East India Company's trade in indigo prints suggest that all the boxes could be checked. 


For another International Quilt Museum exhibit on international trade see their 2019 exhibit Old World Quilts with some of their earliest textiles created during the growing trend for international trade:
https://www.internationalquiltmuseum.org/exhibition/old-world-quilts
From the section about India:
"Indian textiles were introduced to Europe early in the seventeenth century and quickly sparked a shift in consumer taste. Wool and silk fabrics were replaced in home décor and clothing with brightly colored printed and painted cotton textiles that were washable, colorfast, and comfortable. India’s long-established textile producing communities, particularly along the country’s eastern coast, were masters of mordant dyeing, a specialized technique required for adhering dye to cotton fabric." I add: The Indian artisans were also skillful at indigo resist 
Mending the Quilt, nostalgic print from the Wallace Nutting group,
early 20th-century.

Now, I have my own hypothesis I've been working on and it's what led me to this discussion. Quilts are a compelling version of American mythology because they were in the 19th and early 20th centuries seen as part of our British origins, specifically linked to Anglo-Saxon heritage. In the midst of 19th-century wars with Mexico and rising strife between North and South plus immigrants causing perceived threats to "Authentic Americanism" patchwork quilts stood for traditional crafts not derived from Spain, France or India. Quilts were associated with "hardy New Englanders."
Indigo Resist bedquilt attributed to New Englander Mary Wilber (1781-1846) 
Swansea, Massachusetts. Collection of Old Sturbridge Village

What can I offer as proofs for this hypothesis?---many anecdotal records ranging from Harriet Beecher Stowe's fiction to the Cooper Union Museum's record on attributions of the indigo resist prints. See three earlier posts on the topic:


And read a preview of Interwoven Globe here:

Connecticut Museum of Culture & History 

Make-do medallion bedcover made from a variety of scraps
including selvage edges of indigo resist fabrics with tax stamps,
attributed to a member of Connecticut's Comfort Starr family.

Warrants close examination!

Lynne Zacek Bassett sent some detail photos she's taken.



For more fabric styles that found no favor with English consumers see this post:
"Portuguese" Stripes:

The previous 4 posts on Indigo Resist and its sources:
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2 comments:

  1. Gypsy Quilter DesignsJune 30, 2024 at 3:42 PM

    Thank you Barbara for this very informative article. The first time I went to college, I was a textile major. I still enjoy reading about the details of fabric. I'm curious though, have you ever seen any blue resist quilts listed in the wills of New England residents. Somewhere along the way, I recall reading a listing of household items to be passed on in a will and textiles were included.

    Thank you for all of your hard work doing this kind of research.

    San / Murphy, N.C. / Gypsy Quilter Designs

    ReplyDelete
  2. Barbara BrackmanJuly 1, 2024 at 5:54 PM

    I know nothing about New England wills. It's a good path for research though!

    ReplyDelete

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