Rare, Valuable and Historic Quilt at Home at Nebraska
The Reconciliation Quilt, a famous piece thought to be the world-record quilt sold at auction, was unveiled Jan. 10 as a recent donation to the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln by Robert and Ardis James.
The pictorial album quilt by Lucinda Ward Honstain is widely known among folk art and quilt collectors as an outstanding example of the use of textiles for the expression of political sentiments -- in this instance, the abolition of slavery.
The piece is one of the most widely photographed and publicized antique quilts in recent history, and sold for $264,000 in 1991 at auction at Sotheby's. Robert and Ardis James, avid quilt collectors and benefactors, later acquired the quilt and recently donated it to the International Quilt Study Center.
This extraordinary quilt, which has never before been publicly exhibited, will be on display in the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery until the end of February, which is Black History Month.
This quilt is "one of the finest pieces of Americana to come across my desk. It's unsurpassed in condition, composition, and historical importance," said Nancy Druckman, Senior Vice President and Director, American Folk Art, Sotheby's New York, where this outstanding quilt first came to the attention of the art world.
It features 40 unique pictorial quilt blocks depicting scenes of domestic, commercial and political life in the United States during the years before and after the Civil War. The quilt includes a block portraying a black man on foot towering over a white man on horseback with the inscription "Master I am Free." One quilt block features the embroidered date Nov. 18, 1867, the year blacks gained the right to vote. Another block commemorates the release of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, from Fort Monroe, Va., where he was imprisoned.
Clearly, the maker wanted to mark the emancipation of African-Americans nationwide after the Civil War, but also the reconciliation of the North and the South to create a stronger nation in the years that followed.
Although the maker of the quilt clearly expressed her abolitionist sentiments, her name, Lucinda Ward Honstain, remained obscure until Irene Preston Miller, a textile craft shop owner who lived in the area of the maker's descendants, heard about the quilt, recognized its importance and sought more information. Miller located the maker's grave. Little else was known about Honstain until Melissa Woodson, a graduate research fellow at the International Quilt Study Center, began to search for information to shed light on her life and the genre scenes depicted in her quilt. Research revealed that Honstain, born in Ossining, Westchester County, N.Y., on July 24, 1820, moved to lower Manhattan with her parents when she was about 5 years old and remained in the area for the rest of her life. She was an adult in her mid-40s living in Brooklyn when she made this remarkable quilt. A number of the quilt's pictorial blocks depict common sights and scenes of 19th century New York City.
Further research revealed that Honstain's family owned slaves during her early childhood; she would have seen them freed by the time she was 7 years old in 1827 when all slaves in New York became free under the state's gradual emancipation law. It appears from census records that the family's freed slaves may have continued to live nearby on the same street. Honstain's childhood memories of these events and the resulting changes in her family's daily life may account for her depiction of African-Americans in a number of the blocks of her unique quilt.
The International Quilt Study Center was established in 1997 with the donation of nearly 950 quilts from the Ardis and Robert James Quilt Collection. It is located at the Home Economics building on East Campus and can also be visited at http://quiltstudy.unl.edu. It was established to encourage the interdisciplinary study of all aspects of quilt-making and to foster preservation of this tradition. The Center's mission is to study those past and present who have practiced the tradition, the objects they have made and the materials they have used, and to collect, conserve and exhibit quilts and associated textiles. It now has more than 1,200 quilts from around the world in its collection, ranging from the 1700s to modern times.
"This quilt merits careful examination and further research, which is currently under way," said Patricia Crews, Director of the International Quilt Study Center and Professor of Textiles. "We are the perfect home for this exceptional quilt because the mission of the International Quilt Study Center is to foster a deeper appreciation for the importance of quilt-making traditions by combining academic scholarship with the collection, conservation and exhibition of quilts."
"The study of quilts and other folk traditions has great potential to advance the understanding of American culture and the history of women and their varied and changing roles in society."
Carolyn Ducey, International Quilt Study Center curator noted, "This quilt is indeed one of the finest examples of American quilt-making and will be a treasured addition to the Center's collection." The quilt-maker?s careful selection of appropriate fabrics and attention to detail makes the figures depicted in each block come alive.
CONTACT: Patricia Crews, International Quilt Study Center -- (402) 472-6342; Kelly Bartling, University Communications -- 402-472-2059 Scanned images and color transparencies are available
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