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Friendship Quilt
Ella Maria Deacon (Mount Holly, New Jersey, United States)
1842
- Medium
- Appliquéd and pieced quilt; dyed and printed plain weave cotton fabrics; ink inscriptions
- Classification
- Textile
- Dimensions
- 264.7 × 272.6 cm (104 1/8 × 107 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- Mount Holly
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Textiles
- Credit line
- Gift of Betsey Leeds Tait Puth
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Inscribed with names and verses, the eighty-five unique squares of this quilt bear signs of friendship and community. Made in an era when communication and travel required significant time and effort, the quilt may have served as a farewell gift on the eve of the recipient's marriage and ensuing move. In one square, an M. C. Coles simply wrote Remember me. In another, Martha Buzby composed a short poem: Oft in tender recollection / Call to mind thine absent friend / Cherish for her that affection / Which I trust will never end. These clever, succinctly rendered compositions add a metaphorical layer of coziness to the quilt and allowed Deacon to keep those dear always near.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
