Stenciled bedcovers

Magazine Antiques, Feb, 2003 by Lynne Zacek Bassett

Stenciled bedcovers are reputed to be rare, but a new search through several museum collections and quilt publications has uncovered fifty-nine examples, twenty-six of which are quilted. (1) The earliest dated stenciled coverlet found in this search is from 1823, the latest, 1867, with other dated examples from 1826, 1834, 1837, 1842, and 1846 (see Pls. I, III, X). (2) This style of bedcover is generallay attributed to New England, but it was very popular in New York State as well. Of the thirty-five stenciled bedcovers for which a state of origin is known or attributed, eleven were made in New York, ten in Connecticut, three in Massachusetts, three in Vermont, three in New Hampshire, one in Maine, and one in New Jersey. Three have histories placing their origin outside the northeastern United States, including a crib quilt made for an infant named George Jones in Ohio. (3) However, since Ohio was settled mainly by New Englanders, the maker was probably originally from New England. (4)

Thus the provenances of the bedcovers and the dates inscribed on them support the beliefs that stenciled household textiles were most popular in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, and that the fashion was limited almost exclusively to the northeastern United States. In this period and region, stenciling potentially could be found on almost any surface. Walls and floors, desks, tables, chairs, boxes, tinware, window curtains, coverlets, tablecloths, and even clothing accessories were subject to the stenciler's stubby brush. The work was done by both professional fancy painters and amateur home decorators.

The 1823 coverlet previously mentioned has a family history of being "hand-stenciled for Mrs. Elophalet Bailey of Acworth, New Hampshire by [a] strolling artist who spent several weeks in her home," (5) suggesting, perhaps, that the artist stenciled Bailey's walls as well as her coverlet. However, this history is very unusual. Generally, the makers of stenciled bedcovers appear to have been young women, judging by examples with known makers and dates. For example, Clarissa Moore of Tolland, Connecticut, was seventeen when she made her stenciled quilt in 1837 (Pls. I, Ia), and Emily Morton of Thorndike, Maine (see P1. X), and Elzina Salome Williams (1826-1891) were both sixteen. (6) Sarah Ann Dewey Allen (d. 1846) of North Hero, Vermont, made a stenciled coverlet about the time of her marriage to Reuben C. Allen in 1841. (7)

The girls probably learned stenciling while students at academies for young ladies. (8) The bedcover designs are often similar to the floral bouquets, vessels of fruit, and exotic birds found on schoolgirls' theorem paintings--stenciled pictures on velvet intended to be framed and hung on the wall. Stenciling could also be learned on the job, for cabinetmakers and tinsmiths frequently employed girls and young women to decorate furniture and tinware. The large fancy chair and painted tinware industries in Connecticut may account for the high percentage of documented stenciled coverlets originating from that state.

For those without specific training in stenciling, there were a number of manuals available in the early nineteenth century to provide guidance, including J. William Alston's Hints to Young Practitioners in the Study of Landscape Painting...to Which are Added, Instructions in the Art of Painting on Velvet (Edinburgh, 1804), The Art of Drawing and Colouring from Nature: Flowers, Fruit, and Shells...Correct Directions for Preparing the Most Brilliant Colours for Painting on Velvet, with the Mode of Using Them, by Nathaniel Whittock (London, 1829), Matthew D. Finn's Theoremetical System of Painting or Modem Plan, Fully Explained, in Six Lessons...(New York, 1830), and Maria Turner's Young Ladies' Assistant in Drawing and Painting (Cincinnati, 1833). The well-known itinerant painter Rufus Porter (1792-1884) offered the following instructions on how to make a stencil and use it to decorate a floor or a floorcloth:

Take a sheet of pasteboard and paint thereon with a pencil, any flower or figure that would be elegant for a border or carpet figure; then with small gouges and chisels, or a sharp penknife, cut out the figure completely, that it be represented by holes cut through the paper. Lay this paper or pasteboard on the ground intended to receive the figure...and with a stiff, smooth brush, paint with a quick vibration over the whole figure.--Then take up the paper and you will have the entire figure on the ground. (9)

Stencils could also be cut from varnished paper (often called "horn paper" for its transparent yellow appearance). Lydia Maria Francis Child (1802-1880) described how to make such paper for stencils in The Girls Own Book in 1833:

The transparent paper can be prepared in the following manner: cover a sheet of letter-paper with spirits of turpentine, and let it dry in the air; then varnish one side with copal varnish; when perfectly dry, turn it, and varnish the other side. (10)

The process made the paper stencil impervious to the paint or dye, and its transparency allowed the artist to accurately match up, or register, the elements of her design. Surviving stencils made in this manner can be found in a number of museum collections, but are now extremely brittle.