CORNUCOPIA AND DOTS WHITEWORK QUILT Quilt (detail)
Artist unidentified
“White on White (and a little gray)” highlights the female response to neoclassicism through three artforms from the Federal era through the ninetheenth century. All-white bedcovers known as whiteworks resonated with classical sculpture through graceful motifs thrown into relief in stuff work, cording, and embroidery. Schoolgirl needleworks known as print works were based on classical mourning motifs and stitched only in black silk threads on shimmering white silk to imitate uncolored engravings. Marble-dust drawings evoked romantic associations with classical themes in sooty lampblack pigment on boards prepared with crushed, glittering marble dust.
In the eighteenth-century imagination, the crystalline austerity sought in neoclassical decorative arts could be captured only in the incorruptibility of whites that invoked the purity and timelessness of classical antiquity. The whiteness of white, comprising all colors and reflecting light, was the perfect metaphor for the Age of Enlightenment.
- New York Times
Concentric Circles Candlewick Spread
Artist unidentified
Maine
1830–1840
Cotton with clipped cotton roving embroidery
89 1/2 x 86 1/4 in.
American Folk Art Museum, gift of Jay Johnson, 1991.6.2
Photo by Gavin Ashworth
Fryer Family Mourning Piece
Margaret Fryer (1785–1823)
Albany, New York
1800
Silk thread, ink, and graphite on silk
16 x 22 in.
Collection of Suzanne and Michael Payne
Photo by Gavin Ashworth
Dressing Table Cover
Artist unidentified
Eastern United States
Early 19th century
Cotton with stuff work, netted border, and fringes
28 1/2 x 56 in.
American Folk Art Museum, gift of Cyril Irwin Nelson in honor of Anna Westcott Nelson and Cruz Rivera, 2002.15.1
Photo by Gavin Ashworth
Andrews Family Mourning Piece
Probably an unidentified member of the Andrews family
Mary Balch Academy, Providence, Rhode Island
c. 1810
Silk thread and ink on silk
16 1/2 x 19 1/2 in.
Collection of Suzanne and Michael Payne
Photo by Gavin Ashworth
Cornucopia and Dots Whitework Quilt (detail)
Artist unidentified
United States
c. 1800–1820
Cotton
95 x 89 in.
American Folk Art Museum, gift of Cyril I. Nelson, 2005.11.1
Photo by Gavin Ashworth
Bryon’s Dream
Artist unidentified
United States
c. 1845–1865
Black chalk over lampblack on marble dust board
17 3/16 x 22 in.
Collection of Valerie Smith and Matt Mullican
Photo by August Bandal
