Maryland quilts.(antiques)(Brief Article)

Maryland has a long and rich tradition of quiltmaking, which reached its apogee with the appearance of the Baltimore album quilt in the mid-nineteenth century. The earliest known quilts (of which few survive) were made in and around the coastal cities of Maryland in the early nineteenth century, and display the influence of their English counterparts. This is not surprising because the majority of them were stitched by immigrants from Great Britain, who comprised the population base of this part of Maryland at the time. By the end of the eighteenth century settlers had migrated to the western part of the state, where they encountered Germans who had come there via Pennsylvania.

For the better part of the last two years a traveling exhibition, largely drawn from the excellent collection of the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore, and amplified by a handful of loans from the Lovely Lane Museum (also in Baltimore) and private collectors, was seen in various Japanese museums to wide acclaim. Now the exhibition of more than forty quilts representing the evolution of quiltmaking in Maryland has returned home. Entitled The Baltimore Album Quilt Tradition, it is on view at the society until September 9, along with related paintings and decorative arts objects. The earliest quilts were designed to have a central ...