This light and dark blue wool double cloth coverlet is woven in two panels and seamed at the center. The ground is decorated with various floral motifs associated with the Dutch weavers of the Bergen County, New Jersey/Rockland County, New York, area. The border is composed of birds and tree motifs alternating with vases of flowers. Each of the four corner blocks is decorated with a single large sunflower. The piece has a natural fringe along the bottom.
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Title:Coverlet
Date:1836
Geography:Possibly made in Rockland, New York, United States; Possibly made in Bergen, New Jersey, United States
Culture:American
Medium:Wool, woven
Dimensions:98 x 71 1/2 in. (248.9 x 181.6 cm)
Credit Line:Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Kenneth H. Fried and the Friends of the American Wing, 1982
Accession Number:1982.366
David D. Haring (1800-1889) is the best documented of the New Jersey coverlet weavers. The Museum owns three coverlets from the Bergen County area where Haring worked: one signed by him (1988.127), one attributed to him (1989.30), and this example made by a weaver familiar with Haring's work (1982.366), or perhaps even trained by him. Haring was born in New Jersey and was a member of a large extended Dutch family that settled in the Bergen County area in the eighteenth century. His work and that of the few other known Bergen County weavers of the period differ in appearance from the coverlets produced during the same years by New York and Pennsylvania weavers. Bergen County coverlet motifs, which are derived from a combination of traditional Dutch designs and symbols of the new American Republic, are quite distinctive, and the coverlets are always double cloth in structure. In addition, it seems that they were woven in only two color variations: dark indigo blue wool and undyed cotton (or occasionally undyed linen) or, in the case of the less common all-wool coverlet, dark and light blue indigo-dyed wool. Haring was the most prolific coverlet weaver in the area, and it is probable that the other weavers who adopted his characteristic motifs either wove with him in his workshop or were trained by him and then went out on their own. The best-known weavers of related coverlets are I. Christie (whose early pieces are practically identical to Haring's) and Nathaniel Young. This coverlet is woven completely of wool, which has been dyed two shades of indigo blue. The maker has not been identified, although a number of weavers in the area made all-wool coverlets, including Haring, whose motifs are the same as many in this piece. However, the work is not signed by Haring, and his two best-known trademarks, a rose with four leaves and a rooster standing on an egg, are missing from it. Instead, each corner block in this piece has a sunflower, a trademark that has not yet been identified. It is possible that this coverlet is the work of a New York State weaver, since it was made for Garret I. Smith, and Smith was a common name at this time in the towns of Piermont and Tallman in Rockland County, New York. These towns border the area of Bergen County where Haring wove. Unfortunately, Smith is such a common name that we have not yet been able to identify the man for whom this coverlet was produced. [Peck 2015; adapted from Amelia Peck, "American Quilts & Coverlets in the Metropolitan Museum of Art," 2007]
Inscription: woven twice, forward and reverse, in top and bottom borders: GARRET / I. SMITH. / 1836
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The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works by African American, Euro American, Native American, and Latin American artists, ranging from the colonial to early-modern period.
