Stenciled bedcovers

Magazine Antiques, Feb, 2003 by Lynne Zacek Bassett

(21.) See Lynne Z. Bassett, "'Spun me some worsted to quilt with': New England's Early Wool Quilts," What's New England About New England Quilts? Proceedings of a Symposium at Old Sturbridge Village, June 13, 1998 (Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge, Massachusetts, 1999), pp. 2-18. The example illustrated on p. 11, Fig. 5, is very close to the pattern on the bedcover at the National Museum of American History. That quilt is accession number 77-38-31.

(22.) For an example of the Whig Rose applique pattern, see Barbara Brackman, Encyclopedia of Applique; An Illustrated, Numerical Index to Traditional and Modern Patterns (EPM Publications, McLean, Virginia, 1993), p. 72, Fig. 14.67.

(23.) Ibid., p. 76, Fig. 17.20.

(24.) Orlofsky and Orlofsky, Quilts in America, p. 191.

(25.) Nina Fletcher Little, American Decorative Wall Painting, 1700-1850 (E. P. Dutton, New York, 1972), p. 99. Little goes on to cast doubt on the family tradition that Lucinda Pomeroy of Somers, Connecticut, designed and executed the stenciling on her walls, writing: "the similarity of the details to those in the Stratton Tavern, and in other houses of the 'Stimp' group, suggests a connection which was more than coincidental. If the work was actually done by her, Lucinda must have seen one of the houses in her neighborhood and carefully copied the designs for her own use" (p. 99). Lydia Eldredge Williams (b. 1793) of Ashfield, Massachusetts, is credited as a possible stenciler by Janice Tauer Wass and Philip Parr in Wall Stenciling in Western New York, 1800-1840 (Rochester Museum and Science Center, Rochester, New York, 1985), pp. 5-6, and by Janet Waring in Early American Stencils on Walls and Furniture (William R. Scott, New York, 1937), pp. 30-31.

LYNNE ZACEK BASSETT, an independent scholar who writes and lectures on early New England textiles, is currently the costume specialist at the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford.