Maryland quilts

Magazine Antiques, August, 2001 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

Maryland has a long and rich tradition of quiltmaking, which reached its apogee with the appearance of the Baltimore album quilt in the mid-nineteenth century. The earliest known quilts (of which few survive) were made in and around the coastal cities of Maryland in the early nineteenth century, and display the influence of their English counterparts. This is not surprising because the majority of them were stitched by immigrants from Great Britain, who comprised the population base of this part of Maryland at the time. By the end of the eighteenth century settlers had migrated to the western part of the state, where they encountered Germans who had come there via Pennsylvania.

For the better part of the last two years a traveling exhibition, largely drawn from the excellent collection of the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore, and amplified by a handful of loans from the Lovely Lane Museum (also in Baltimore) and private collectors, was seen in various Japanese museums to wide acclaim. Now the exhibition of more than forty quilts representing the evolution of quiltmaking in Maryland has returned home. Entitled The Baltimore Album Quilt Tradition, it is on view at the society until September 9, along with related paintings and decorative arts objects. The earliest quilts were designed to have a central medallion on a white ground. Motifs used for borders included swags, urns, and bowknots, which can also be found as embellishments on furniture, silver, and other objects made during the period. Figural motifs cut out of chintz were often sewn to the quilt top in a fashion that was later called broderie perse.

What are known today as album quilts consist of squares laid out in a grid pattern in which recognizable local buildings, ships, monuments, and people are accompanied by baskets of flowers, bowls of fruit, animals, and geometric motifs. By the mid-nineteenth century many of these quilts were being made by Methodist women, often in recognition of or to thank their departing ministers, who, by church mandate, were moved to a new parish every two years. Album quilts were a group undertaking and could even be purchased in kit form and then personalized with ink* or stamped inscriptions. These colorful and historically fascinating quilts were outmoded by the mid- 850s and with the Civil War close at hand, were no longer a part of the women's sphere.

The catalogue of the exhibition, written by Nancy E. Davis, is available in an English and Japanese edition, and may be obtained from the society by telephoning 410-685-3750 or through the society's Web site (wwwmdhs.org).