Reflections of the Exotic East in American Quilts

Reflections of the Exotic East in American Quilts presents an historical overview of the influence of Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and Middle Eastern design on American quiltmaking. It illustrates this influence through the Eastern motifs and materials used in quilts made between 1800 and 1950. Quilts from this period reflect the ongoing Western fascination with the "Orient," and also reveal the inaccurate and incomplete European and American vision of the mysterious and alluring “exotic” East.

Reflections of China

The fabric pictured here is not Chinese. It is a European mixture of Chinese designs and whimsical imaginations of how China and its people might look. Many of these chinoiserie designs found their way into early American quilts and added an exotic touch. The fad for chinoiseries began in the late 1700s and continued well into the 1800s.

One hundred years later, China rose again as a prominent influence on American decorative arts and popular culture. Chinoiserie designs adorned everything from vases to dinnerware to furniture. Fanciful interpretations of Chinese culture appeared in the popular Charlie Chan and Dr. Fu Manchu movies of the 1920s and ’30s and in Art Deco styles that incorporated geometric fretwork patterns, which reflected the Chinese preference for formal, symmetrical designs.

Printed chinoiserie fabric, c. 1780-1800, IQSCM 2008.040.0192, acquisition made possible by Robert & Ardis James Fund at the University of Nebraska Foundation, partial gift of Sara Rhodes Dillow

Reflections of Japan

The Crazy quilt format closely resembles the Japanese "cracked ice" design, a haphazard placement of lines often depicted with superimposed plum blossoms to symbolize the coming of spring. After seeing Japanese crafts at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876, Americans rapidly incorporated Japanese motifs and aesthetics into their own fine and domestic arts. The asymmetrical quality of many of these designs, like the "cracked ice" design, differed radically from typical Victorian styles and therefore appealed to many people as exotic.

Crazy quilts dominated the quiltmaking and fancy needlework of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Appliquéd or embroidered images of fans, butterflies, and other motifs popular in Asian decorative arts, frequently embellished these quilts. Images from contemporary popular culture also occur.

Cracked Ice design (Marin Hanson).

Reflections of India

Imported printed and painted Indian chintzes directly influenced Western quilts’ materials and design. When Europeans first encountered printed cottons from India during the early 1600s, they marveled at the bright, colorfast, washable fabrics. By 1800 cotton prints soon replaced silk and wool as the preferred material for decorative bed-coverings. Today, cotton is still the dominant fabric in quilts.

Indian textiles influenced quilt design also. Palampores—printed cotton bedspreads with a large central design surrounded by a border print—are reflected in the Medallion format of many quilts made between 1800 and 1850, in both chintz appliqué and pieced quilts.

India's woven Kashmir shawls also proved influential. The pine-cone motif, now known as the paisley, made up the primary design element of the shawl. Produced by highly skilled weavers of the Kashmir region of northern India, these shawls became the height of fashion for early 1800s European women. The French Empress, Josephine, was said to have owned 400 of them!

Printed and painted palampore, probably made in India, c. 1750-1770, IQM 2008.040.0219, acquisition made possible by Robert & Ardis James Fund at the University of Nebraska Foundation, partial gift of Sara Rhodes Dillow

Reflections of the Middle East and North Africa

Interest in Middle Eastern and North African life increased in Europe and America throughout the nineteenth century, beginning with Napoleon’s Egyptian campaigns at the beginning of the century and reaching its height at mid-century with the many painters (Delacroix, Ingres, Gerome) who turned to this part of the world for their subject matter. These artists' depictions, however, often reflected a superficial Western understanding of Middle Eastern and North African life.

During the last half of the nineteenth century, Middle Eastern influence on quilts became more prominent than either Indian or Chinese. Women’s magazines of the period frequently referred to these hexagonal pieced quilt patterns as “mosaic” designs and encouraged readers to display them in rooms decorated in the fashionable Turkish style

Nancy Cabot

In the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, quilt designers had an affinity for exotic or oriental patterns. In the era of Charlie Chan and Anna Mae Wong in the movie theaters, Chinese Chippendale furniture in the living room, and kimonos and harem pants in the boudoir, popular culture used the words “oriental” and “exotic” interchangeably, and quilt patterns with an exotic flair were all the rage.

Nancy Cabot, the pseudonymous quilt pattern columnist for the Chicago Tribune, heavily promoted this trend. Quiltmakers all over the country became familiar with Cabot’s exotic patterns, with names like Japanese Poppy, Chinese Gongs and Persian Poinsettia, because of her widely syndicated column. Often these patterns were exotic in name only. As with other early-twentieth century designers, Cabot recycled traditional patterns and gave them new names, likely in the hopes of adding appeal for a new generation.

Works in the Exhibition

Dragon quilt
Circa 1925
Maker Unknown
Made in the United States
IQM 1997.007.0225, gift of Ardis and Robert James

This quilt’s scaly dragon has feet with five claws, just like the dragon on the Qing Dynasty Imperial flag. Lesser Chinese royal officials could wear four- and three-clawed dragons on their robes, but only the emperor, his sons and high officials displayed the five-clawed dragon. In Chinese mythology, the dragon is a cosmic force that brings rain, thunder and lightning. For this reason, dragons traditionally represented the strength and splendor of the Chinese emperor. American popular culture of the early twentieth century, when this quilt was made, commonly featured Chinese imagery—both authentic and exoticized.

Plum Blossoms
Circa 1935
Maker Unknown
Possibly made in Indiana
IQM 1997.007.0857, gift of Ardis and Robert James

Delicate plum blossoms sway gracefully on curving branches in this appliqué quilt. Because plum blossoms bloom in the harsh winter months, they are a traditional Chinese and Japanese symbol of strength, longevity, and rejuvenation. These plum blossoms hang asymmetrically—in a typically Japanese fashion—while the ordered setting of the blossoms in rows and columns reflects the Chinese preference for formal balance. The Art Deco-style borders are closely related to traditional Chinese “fretwork” patterns, or geometric linear background designs. The overall design of this quilt reflects America’s early twentieth-century passion for Asian-inspired interior furnishings.

Crazy quilt
Circa 1889
Made in the United States
IQM 2012.042.0007, gift of Marilynn G. Karp in memory of Ivan C. Karp

Sunrise quilt
Circa 1880-1900
Maker Unknown
Possibly made in Ohio
IQM 1997.007.0399, gift of Ardis and Robert James

The undulating curves of this complex pieced quilt are remarkably similar to the Japanese "ocean waves" pattern, which features staggered semi-circles. Adding to its Japanese appearance is its indigo and white color scheme, a common color combination in Japanese textiles and ceramics.

Style and Construction Note: Each sunrise in this quilt serves as its own hand-pieced curvilinear block. From a distance the radiating indigo and white points appear to be equal in number from block to block; however, they actually range in number from 28 to 42.

Stars, Hearts & Cross, and King's Crown variation quilt top
c. 1850-1870
Possibly made in Montgomery County, PA
Cotton, 91 x 91 inches, 1997.007.0231

Two variations of the paisley design appear in the vivid Turkey red fabrics in this block-style, appliqué quilt top. The paisley design originated in Persia and flourished in India, where it was called buta, and was the featured motif on expensive, hand-woven Kashmir shawls. The motif gained its Western name from the city of Paisley, Scotland, where manufacturers produced Jacquard-woven copies of the popular, but expensive, Kashmir shawls. Mass-produced Paisley shawls were fashionable among for several decades in the early 1800s. As a symbol of distant, romantic India, the paisley motif decorated a wide variety of other early nineteenth-century fabrics. It remains a standard Western pattern, even in today’s specialty quilt fabrics, although most people are unaware of its Eastern origins.

Embroidered Peacock quilt
c. 1930
Possibly made in Tennessee
Cotton, 86 x 78 inches, 6-7 QSPI, 1997.007.0804

The late 19th- and early 20th-century Aesthetic, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco movements favored the peacock as a design motif. See, for instance, the pattern that French Art Nouveau designer M.P. Verneuil created based on the image of a peacock (above). The peacock is native to India, which adds significantly to its perceived exotic quality. It is a symbol of power and beauty in India, as well as the national bird, and is associated with the Hindu gods Brahma, creator of the universe, Kartikeya, god of war, and with the heavenly Buddha, Amitabha.

Style and Construction Note: A combination of outline, satin, and French knot embroidery stitches create this brilliant bird. Women’s magazines and needlework catalogs in America offered many embroidered quilts like this one in the 1920s and ’30s, and the style remained popular for decades afterwards.

Chintz Strip quilt
Circa 1800-1850
Maker unknown
Possibly made in Pennsylvania
IQM 1997.007.0427, gift of Ardis and Robert James

The striking turbaned horseman riding across this chintz strip quilt appears to be rushing into battle. He appears to be Middle Eastern or North African—in fact, he very well could be one of the Mamluks, cavalry soldiers who served the Muslim Arab caliphs from the 9th to the 16th centuries. As a powerful symbol of the Arab Muslim world, Middle-Eastern horsemen became a favorite subject of nineteenth-century Western artists (see above), who admired their brave and brash image, but also wanted to remind Europeans of the threat they could pose to “civilization”.

Style and Construction Note: Strip quilts of the first half of the nineteenth century reflect a general taste for vertical stripes in European and American decorative arts of this period. Pillar prints (fabrics featuring architectural columns) and floral stripes common appeared in wallpapers and textiles of the period. The popular dark, chocolate brown backgrounds provided an excellent contrast to bright foreground patterns, as seen in this quilt's horseman print.

Hexagon Mosaic quilt
Circa 1870-1890
Possibly made in Pennsylvania
IQM 1997.007.0145, gift of Ardis and Robert James

This pattern resembles some of the simpler forms of tilework seen in mosques across Turkey and the Middle East. Hexagon mosaic patterns, first used in English and American quilts in the late 1700s, became popular again after 1850, approximating a fashionable Oriental "look" in home furnishings. Adding to this quilt's Eastern appearance are two different prints containing exotic birds. One features a bird of paradise and the other a peacock. The birds are cut apart to form the hexagons and you must visually recreate them by finding their various parts.

Tile quilt
Circa 1876
Possibly made in New London, Connecticut
IQSCM 1997.007.0163, gift of Ardis and Robert James

Two wild-looking horsemen spring into action at the center of this busy quilt top. They are wearing robes reminiscent of Arab nomads and one of the horses has the star and crescent on its tackle, pointing to a Muslim identity for the riders. Like the horseman in the chintz strip quilt in this exhibition, these riders represent Western notions of exotic Middle Eastern life. Other Eastern cultures are represented as well: for instance, the pagoda (bottom left) remained one of the most commonly used symbols for China throughout the nineteenth century; the crane (middle right) is both a Chinese and Japanese symbol of peace; and the lotus (two locations—middle right and top left) is a Buddhist symbol of purity found in Chinese, Indian, and Japanese art.

A fashion for turbans and kimonos, the popularity of Rudolph Valentino movies such as The Young Rajah and The Sheik, and Chinese-inspired home furnishings demonstrate the popularity of Oriental themes in vogue in the 1920s and 1930s in America.

Style and Construction Note: Although Tile quilts like this one—which are constructed from densely appliqued cotton fabrics—resemble the Crazy quilts of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, most of them actually pre-date the typical silk Crazy quilts and can therefore be considered possible prototypes for the later, fancier style.

Oriental Tulip
Circa 1930-1935
Maker unknown
Possibly made in Pennsylvania
IQM 2003.003.0141, acquisition made possible by Robert & Ardis James Fund at the University of Nebraska Foundation, partial gift of Jonathan Holstein

Although Nancy Cabot most often recycled traditional patterns, she also designed new patterns, such as her Oriental Tulip of 1933. The headline for this pattern announced: “Out of Ancient Egypt Comes Gay Design for Modern Quilt.” She claims that it is a “reproduction of an old Egyptian design that used to be embroidered on robes and temple hangings.” Whether this North African provenance is true, the pattern itself appears to be more modern than exotic, resembling many other Art Deco-inspired patterns of the era. In the end, an exotic pattern name proved irresistible to Nancy Cabot, like other quilt block designers of her day.

Works in the Exhibition

Gallery Photos

This exhibition was made possible through funding from the Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment. The Nebraska Arts Council, a state agency, has supported this exhibition through its matching grants program funded by the Nebraska Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment. Visit www.artscouncil.nebraska.gov for more information.

Past

Event Date

Friday, March 6, 2015 to Wednesday, August 26, 2015