New London County Quilts & Bed Covers 1750-1825
Florence Griswold Museum
Old Lyme, Connecticut
February 12–May 1, 2022
Some of America’s most celebrated items of textile folk art were produced by women from New London County and nearby areas. This exhibition brings together for the first time two important groups of these lauded textiles: petticoats uniquely quilted with an array of animals and maritime motifs, and embroidered bed rugs. Masterful stuffed whitework and appliquéd bed covers demonstrate the continuation into the early 19th century of this region’s extraordinary needlework heritage and the family connections that nurtured them.
High-style European design filtered down to colonial New England through pattern books referenced by craftsmen and through imported goods, such as lining papers, ceramics, silver, and lace, inspiring regional interpretations in various decorative arts. Examples of the books and household objects that inspired the unique designs of New London County’s needlewomen are displayed here alongside their quilts and bed rugs.
New London County’s general economic stability, with prosperous seafaring ventures and farming, allowed many families to have household help (both enslaved and free), which provided the hours necessary for middle- and upper-class women to pursue their needle artistry. An enslaved African-American nursemaid tends to a baby in Prudence Punderson’s embroidered vision of the stages of a woman’s life. The privileged daughter of a Yale College and King’s College-educated father and granddaughter of Ledyard’s Anglican minister, Prudence likely created this iconic embroidery—indisputably the most famous of any produced in America—while her family was in exile on Long Island due to their Loyalist sympathies during the Revolutionary War. Punderson family embroideries are included in this exhibition.
This exhibition has been curated by costume and textile historian Lynne Zacek Bassett. Funding had been generously provided by the Department of Economic and Community Development, Connecticut Office of the Arts, The Connecticut Cultural Fund, The Coby Foundation, Ltd., Connecticut Humanities, Mr. and Mrs. J. Geddes Parsons, Bouvier Insurance, Barbara and Wayne Harms, Mr. & Mrs. Richard H. Booth, Mr. & Mrs. Jeb Embree, Dr. Margaret O’Shea & Mr. Daniel O’Shea, as well as donors to the Museum’s Annual Fund. Media sponsor WSHU Public Radio.
We offer special thanks to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art for its loan of casework for this exhibition.
