One of the world’s finest collections of early American quilts will be on view at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in the fall of 2010. The Winterthur Museum in Delaware is famed for its period room settings featuring the remarkable collection of furniture, fabrics, quilts, and decorative arts collected by Henry Francis du Pont (1880–1969). For the first time ever a selection of more than 40 of the most stunning quilts are traveling for a strictly limited period, allowing a unique opportunity to view these incomparable works in detail.

In addition to showcasing the quilts’ aesthetic qualities, the exhibition explores the lives of their makers, as well as the political, economic and technological developments that shaped production of the quilts. The exhibition will offer an absorbing insight into women’s political, social, and cultural lives in the formative period of the early American republic (1760–1850). “American Quilts” also includes several rare prototypes of bed coverings that were imported to this country as luxury goods from Europe and East India.

American Quilts: Selections from the Winterthur Collection is organized by Winterthur and curated by Linda Eaton, Senior Curator of Textiles at Winterthur.

This exhibition is generously supported by the Elisabeth Shelton Gottwald Fund and the Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Exhibition Endowment.

The Banner Exhibition Program at VMFA is made possible by theJulia Louise Reynolds Fund.

 

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Free for VMFA members and children 6 and under

$15 for adults

$12 for seniors 65+, students
with ID, adult groups of 10+, and youth ages 7–17

Tickets can also be purchased by calling 804.340.1405

Virtual Tour
Friend of My Heart: Courtship and Marriage in Early America