1880-1889

Janet E. Finley Collection of Quilt History Photographs

Horwich, , United Kingdom

Cabinet Card c. 1880-1890
Photographer: A. & W. Millard, Horwich, United Kingdom
Size: 4.25" x 6.5"

This is a compelling post mortem photograph of a baby, with tinted checks, covered in a silk quilt. The photograph was taken in Horwich, England, which is in the greater Manchester area of the United Kingdom. The Cabinet Card's backmark, as shown, is exceptionally beautiful. The silk quilt covering baby is constructed in a Tumbling Block pattern also commonly called Baby Blocks. If you look carefully, you can see a secondary star pattern emerging. Up to the mid-nineteenth century, most quilts were made of cotton or wool because silk was expensive and considered a fabric for the wealthy. Silk quilts have been dated back to the 1840s and were popularly made of one geometric form such as a hexagon or Mosaic, a diamond, or a rectangle (as in Log Cabin). The little baby's silk quilt is composed of sixty degree diamonds. Silk quilts were not expected to be used but were treated as display quilts. Hanging in the background is a pieced one patch quilt in two colors. The baby's cheeks are tinted.

-- With permission of the publisher, excerpted from Janet E. Finley, Quilts in EveryDay Life 1855-1955 (Schiffer Publishing, 2012).