At the end of the eighteenth century in North America, it was still considered proper for even ladies in prosperous households to be industrious, for many believed that idle hands made work for the devil. A wife or mother would have most likely stitched an elegant coverlet such as this one – a close cousin of the patchwork quilt that would have been assembled from scraps in a humbler home.
Ann Walgrave Warner stitched this for her daughter, Phebe. The coverlet is a combination of linen and cotton which is intriguing because linen was more preferred and common to use. Cotton was just beginning to appear in the United States in 1800, when this coverlet was made. The design of flowers is historically associated with women, probably because fragility and beauty were desired traits in girls and women in much of the world.
This piece resides in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and is a fine example of early American art.
*NOTE: Some of the flowers are in baskets; might this have been a mother’s wish – that her daughter be safely cradled in a loving marriage?