Quilts and Coverlets

Focusing on 19th century works, Quilts and Coverlets: American Needlework in White presents superlative whitework textiles, which are characterized by embroidery done in white thread on white fabric. In the United States, whitework was predominantly practiced by women who not only had ample time and superb technical skill but who also enjoyed the means to carefully select and purchase lengths of pristine cotton cloth.   

This exhibition features whitework bedcoverings in the Museum’s collection, produced at the height of American neoclassicism from the early to mid-1800s. Accompanied by ceramics, printed fabrics, and needlework, these exemplary quilts and coverlets reveal a tightly woven landscape of craft, labor, and authorship.  

While uncovering the cultures, motifs, and techniques of whitework embroidery, this exhibition investigates the material significance of cotton—as the product of a transatlantic textile trade which boomed alongside American plantation slavery—and connects to the pale aesthetics of neoclassicism. Monochromatic and intricately textured, the presentation encourages close looking and poses the question: What histories remain visible in needlework done in white on white? 

Quilts and Coverlets: American Needlework in White is curated by Sarah Berg, research assistant for decorative arts and design, with Genny Cortinovis, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Associate Curator of Decorative Arts and Design.