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Crazy Quilt, ca. 1890
Made in Mid-Atlantic, New York, America
Silk, velvet, ribbons, cotton; 60 3/4 x 52 in. (154.3 x 132.1 cm)
Gift of Tracey Blumenreich Zabar, 1989 (1989.66)
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Description
At its simplest, a quilt is a bedcover made of two layers of fabric around a layer of filler, held together by a system of stitching. By the seventeenth century, quilted bedcovers were common throughout Europe. Colonial women brought the craft of quilting with them to this country, where it developed into an American folk art.
This is an example of the style known as crazy quilt. "Crazy" refers to the use of a lavish and colorful mix of materials and techniques, including velvet, embroidery, and appliqué. By the mid-1880s, crazy quilts were so popular that enterprising manufacturers offered them in ready-to-sew kits. Because many were made from these standard kits, crazy quilts tend to have a surprisingly uniform look. This one, in contrast, is uniquely beautiful. It does contain commercially produced elements, such as the cats and some of the embroidered motifs; but each block of the quilt exhibits an unusual pattern. The blocks were probably made from fabric remnants that the quilter had collected herself, rather than bought pre-cut in a kit.
View more highlights from the Museum's Department of American Decorative Arts.
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