Pictorial quilt, 1895-1898

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Pictorial quilt, 1895-1898

1895-1898

https://collections.mfa.org/objects/116166

Appliqué quilt, dyed and printed cotton fabrics applied to cotton. The quilt is divided into fifteen pictorial rectangles. Worked with pieces of beige, pink, mauve, orange, dark red, gray-green and shades of blue cotton. This extraordinary quilt was created by Harriet Powers, an African American woman who was born into slavery in Clarke County, Georgia on October 29,1837. This quilt (together with Powers's descriptions and small portrait photograph) was presented by a group of "faculty ladies" at Atlanta University to a trustee by 1898. Powers had created a similar quilt around 1886, which had been exhibited at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta in 1895.

1 quilt : 175 x 266.7 cm (68 7/8 x 105 in.)

eng, Latn

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 11675067

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Related Entities

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Powers, Harriet, 1837-1910

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w62z33z1 (person)

Harriet Powers (born October 29, 1837, Clarke County, Georgia – died January 1, 1910, Clarke County, Georgia), American folk artist and quilter. Born into slavery in rural northeast Georgia, she married young and had a large family. Until the end of the American Civil War, Powers was enslaved by John and Nancy Lester in Madison County, Georgia. After the American Civil War and emancipation, she and her husband became landowners by the 1880s, but lost their land due to financial problems. ...