Quilt, Indigo Resist Printed

One side of this quilt has a bold floral design in two shades of indigo blue on white. Similar white-ground indigo resists have often been attributed to New York printers, as numerous examples have been found there. Indeed, this quilt descended in the Van Rensselaer family from Albany, New York. The existence of a similar indigo-resist yardage carrying a British excise stamp from 1766 appeared to suggest that at least some of the indigo-resist textiles were British made. Further research suggests that the stamp may have referred to foreign, not English, calicoes. According to one theory, the stamp referred to cotton-ground textiles woven in India and exported as white yardage to be printed in England or elsewhere. Other scholars believe the indigo resists in this group could have been printed in India.

The reverse of the quilt has a China blue block-printed design of rococo ornaments enclosing castles and flowers on a background of scalloped dots that suggest quilting. Despite the stitchlike quality of the design, the quilter did not “follow the dots” on the backing. Instead, he or she stitched a central roundel, quarter rounds in the interior corners, and fans, ignoring the textile patterns entirely. The textiles and batting are cotton, quilted with linen thread.
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