Art Institute of Chicago
Friendship Quilt
Made for Ella Maria Deacon (American, 1811–94)LinkedCulture matchlcp-07c334adc486
- Date
- 1842
- Medium
- Appliquéd and pieced quilt; dyed and printed plain weave cotton fabrics; ink inscriptions
- Culture
- Mount Holly
- Department
- Textiles
- Institution
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Object ID
- 54071
From the Art Institute of Chicago record
Inscribed with names and verses, the eighty-five unique squares of this quilt bear signs of friendship and community. Made in an era when communication and travel required significant time and effort, the quilt may have served as a farewell gift on the eve of the recipient's marriage and ensuing move. In one square, an M. C. Coles simply wrote Remember me. In another, Martha Buzby composed a short poem: Oft in tender recollection / Call to mind thine absent friend / Cherish for her that affection / Which I trust will never end. These clever, succinctly rendered compositions add a metaphorical layer of coziness to the quilt and allowed Deacon to keep those dear always near.
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Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Gift of Betsey Leeds Tait Puth
- Provenance
- Ella Maria Deacon (1811-1894), Mount Holly, New Jersey, 1842 [inscribed lower center]; by descent within the family to Betsey Leeds Tait Puth (1929-2024), Winnetka, IL, by Sept. 26, 1978 [according to research on the family conducted by Becca Fenstermaker, Oct. 10, 2023; copy in curatorial object file]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1978.
Linked open data
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- Object type
- AAT300014063
Part of a LinkedCulture topic
American Quilts and Quilt-MakingThese objects are all quilts or quilt components from 19th-century America, representing various quilting traditions including pieced, appliquéd, and embroidered techniques with distinctive pattern types such as medallio
113 objects from 3 institutions
Related across collections
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