Quilt
Artist
Irene Kingsley Norris
(American, 1855 - 1948)
Date1895-1900
MediumSilk, velvet, brocade, with embroidery
DimensionsOverall: 63 × 63in. (160 × 160cm)
ClassificationsFURNISHINGS
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Terms
Object number76.37
DescriptionPieced crazy quilt consisting of a quilt top divided into 9 squares, burgundy velvet borders, and a lining of machine quilted brown fabric.On View
Not on viewCollections
Copyright<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>.
Label TextMade by Mrs. E. Norris of Utica, this quilt incorporates standard crazy quilt decorative devices. It was made in individual squares to facilitate "lap work" as opposed to the more cumbersome method of working on a single large piece of fabric. A finely executed center monogram is surrounded by a radiating sphere to command attention. A wide variety of embroidery colors and stitches add diversity to the overall design and exhibit the maker's mastery of needlework. Purchased patterns of birds, wheat, and flowers have been freely used.
Crazy Quilt Label Copy:
This quilt, and that by Mary Louise Fuller (on view in the first gallery), share more than the rich fabrics, fractured surface pattern, and jewel tones typical to crazy quilts, both have the initials of their makers at the center, both have embroidered pansies and daisies, and both use fan shapes in their corners. Interestingly, both quilts have an identical series of ducks embroidered on their surface. This similarity might at first seem strange, but crazy quilts from all corners of the United States display such correspondence due to the popularity of patterns marketed specifically for quilters in women’s magazines and via mail order. As the popularity of crazy quilts mounted, manufacturers and businesses created and sold patterns for all the popular images—birds, flowers, insects, household objects, as well as scraps of silks and velvets and embroidery thread used to construct them. There were even patterns for crazy quilt blocks that replicated the look of a freeform fabric arrangement. Despite such correspondences, no two crazy quilts are exactly alike; all feature some idiosyncratic image or arrangement of images. In Norris’s work we find several examples—a mirror, a vase, dogs, a shoe—and we are left to wonder how she chose each element.
