{"product_id":"18th-century-french-whole-cloth-pique-quilt-layered-madder-chintz-c-1780","title":"An 18th-Century French Whole-Cloth Piqué Quilt, Woodblock-Printed Madder Chintz with Three-Tiered Historic Backings, c. 1780","description":"\u003cp\u003eA visually compelling and structurally fascinating survival of early 19th-century domestic textile history. This whole-cloth quilt features a beautiful, monochrome madder-red woodblock-printed chintz of scrolling botanical elements on a densely quilted matelassage ground. Close examination of the large floral motifs, especially the red curved detailing, petals and fine internal striping, shows subtle variation in line weight and ink density: the slightly organic, fluid quality that a hand-carved woodblock leaves. The full-view photographs also show faint horizontal and vertical repeat breaks, the telltale seams where each rectangular block was lifted, realigned and pressed back down by hand. The design itself, fanciful exotic flowers, strings of pearls, trailing ribbons and jagged foliage set with generous white space, is an exotic chintz style derived from Indian trade textiles (indiennes), popular in England and France from the 1770s through the 1790s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe reverse reveals three distinct layers of backing, each telling its own part of the story. The outermost layer is a late Victorian clover or sprig print, circa 1870s–1890s, it was most likely a worn-out day dress or lining cotton that a frugal home seamstress repurposed to face the back of the quilt and keep the crumbling red layer beneath from shedding further. Beneath this sits a single-colour madder-style floral print dating to circa 1820s–1840s. Its dense, tightly arranged floral pattern and fine, uniform hatched shading are characteristic of cylinder (roller) printing, the industrial technique that spread through textile mills after 1815 and made patterned cottons affordable workhorses for everyday bed furnishings and dress. This backing is worn and frayed from generations of use. Where it has worn through, it reveals a deeper, original layer beneath: a whole-cloth woven geometric stripe dating to the 1780s, in keeping with the quilt's front, and original to its construction.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe upper edge exhibits authentic, heavy historic \"pull wear\" showing where generations of users adjusted the quilt. An acquisition for textile historians who prize un-restored social provenance and genuine structural evidence of age.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSize: 152 x 165 cm. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penelope Textiles Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57491905708412,"sku":"ANT-Q-002","price":950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0777\/2884\/2001\/files\/IMG_8945.jpg?v=1790192824","url":"https:\/\/www.penelopetextiles.com\/products\/18th-century-french-whole-cloth-pique-quilt-layered-madder-chintz-c-1780","provider":"Penelope Textiles Ltd","version":"1.0","type":"link"}