This is a bed rug completed by Mary Foote (1752-1837), in Colchester, Connecticut in 1778. According to The Magazine Antiques, it was made in preparation for her wedding:

This is one of four spectacular bed rugs made to commemorate the weddings on November 5, 1778, of three siblings of the Foote and Otis families, prosperous farmers and landowners in the Connecticut River valley. The women likely spent the prior year spinning, dyeing, and sewing the rugs, all of which contain a center of stylized flowers enclosed within a reverse-curved border. The outlines are sewn with a running stitch and the designs are filled in with a darning stitch, requiring careful planning.

This beautiful rug is now in the Winterthur Museum in Delaware. Given that poor Mary was obviously very oppressed, I wonder why this rug conveys such a sense of happiness and delight in the floral world.

—- Comments —-

Pilgrim’s Pride writes:

Well, you know how repressed and joyless those Yankee Puritans were. It’s a wonder they populated half a continent all by themselves and, for three centuries hence, attracted half the known world to their shores seeking the American (Yankee?) Dream.

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